I Am Completely Serious

YOU DON’T WANT TO HEAR ME TALK ABOUT MY SERVER LOGS

Continue reading “The mysteries of server logs.”

The Broodmaster quit today. I have not been posting about his classes because they’re infuriating for a wide variety of reasons, chiefly 1) his Dad, 2) my employers, and 3) himself. Basically, he was placed in way too high a level of a textbook, apparently at his Dad’s insistence, and my employers were reluctant to either move him into another book (which would require diplomacy with Obnoxious Dad) or buy me the supplementary materials I would need to try and keep him somewhere near okay in the current one. There’s a cheapness-induced level-gap in the kind of textbooks we’ve got around, and the Broodmaster is in it. We have literally nothing I can use with him. This meant I was spending three or four times longer preparing for him than for anyone else, and I still could never be sure when something I brought in was going to be too easy or too hard.

So, he quit. And I’d been expecting it, and I did what I could, and both he and his Dad are jerks anyway. And I know they’ve even got another student planned to slot into his place already. But I’m still in a bad mood.

Mee and Conan’s mom had a doctor’s appointment today and was going to be late picking up Conan, whose class is right before Mee’s. So I had Conan stay in the classroom with us while Mee had her lessons. She was playing Mario 64 on Mee’s DS, and kept making outraged little five-year-old sounds when Mario died. Mee decided Conan needed to come over and play with us when I brought out Go Fish, which I quickly realized I shouldn’t have allowed, because Mee spent more time explaining the rules to Conan than she did forming English sentences for me.

But they were very cute together, up until the moment at the end of class when Mee kicked Conan.

Argh, Mee! I had to yell at her and make her apologize, which she did not do very sincerely. I know this is perfectly in-character for her Moomin persona - tormenting sisters is what a Mee does - but it was massively disillusioning following their earlier adorability.

I met them on the elevator on my way back from lunch - I’d had to leave them with the other teacher to eat because their mom still wasn’t there - and Mee and Conan again grabbed me and tried to get me to go to eat with them. This was very cute, but I both had already eaten and didn’t have time. (And though their mom did not look horrified by the suggestion like their grandmother did, I’m not exactly going to take them up on this without her outright invitation.)

Conan at this juncture reported to her mother that I am 23 - she said it in both Japanese and English, very proud of herself for knowing double-digit numbers. Her mother was startled at this information. “But that’s so young!” How old do I look, exactly? Or is this in reaction to my teaching the kids? I know there are at least two teachers my age at the juku.

My orcish hunter has had a pig for a pet since the beginning of the game, but I never named it because I could never think of anything I liked enough. I was in the Hinterlands today, and this obviously led me to think about Song for the Basilisk (and how Luna Pellior is the most McKillip-y name McKillip’s ever done), which obviously made me think about the Riddlemaster books (and how there is probably Morgon/Astrin fanfic), which led me to the realization that my level-53 pig’s name should be Hegdis-Noon, the Talking Pig of Hel.

Though that wouldn’t fit, so he’s just Hegdisnoon.

My day off last week was Mr. K’s day, and he was already behind in this month’s material (due to misbehavior), so I had this complex catch-up plan ready to spring on him. And when he came in, his Mom said, “I’m sorry, but he’s not feeling well, so I think I’m just going to take him home.” He stood there looking at me pathetically, apparently not faking this time. Aww, Mr. K! Don’t be sick! You don’t have the vocab for that down yet!

Today Mr. Wow unbuttoned one button on his coat, said, “Jump!”, jumped in the air, unbuttoned another, and repeated the cycle. I said, “Monkey?” He said, “No! Mr. Wow!”

So I taught him to say “Are you a monkey/hippo/chicken/etc?” “No! I’m Mr. Wow!” This turns out to be a good exercise for soaking up excess Mr. Wow energy. He always wants games where he gets to dance. From somewhere he has learned dance steps for every letter of the alphabet, which he unleashed on me today, to his own consternation when he learned I didn’t know them.

His second class I ad-libbed a Shapes Dance to try and tire him out with - I held up flash cards and he had to say the name of the card and do the appropriate dance move. Week-before-last I brought out the shape cards again, and he remembered all the steps. Which I had made up in five seconds more than a month previously. He was very disappointed in me for forgetting most of them.

I think I only post about books I’m annoyed at. This is why there was no post for the first book, but there is for this one.

The book has some structural problems, basically - the pacing is very jerky, and I think Williams kind of lost her balance a little before the halfway point, because all of a sudden things that needed build-up started happening without the build-up. Spoilery examples:

Continue reading “The Demon and the City, Liz Williams”

You would think he would have other things to do.

I have lost just enough weight to render nearly all my clothes, including the stuff I got for Christmas, too big. Of stuff I can wear to work, I have one pair of pants, one turtleneck, and two jackets that aren’t baggy.

I couldn’t figure out why I was losing weight at first, because I’m eating more than I did in Okazaki, but then it came to me - I spend half the day running around after little kids. That I do not think of this as exercise does not alter its effect as such.

I have attempted to go shopping. Why does this country have SUCH POOR COLOR SENSE. How am I supposed to maintain my red-only color scheme if the stuff in my size is all mauve, neon yellow, and this vaguely nauseous shade of aquamarine? And it’s all got ruffles. I saw a blazer that was almost okay except for superfluous ruffles down all the seams. And I saw some blouses that would have been fine except for big frills around the collar. Do you think this is funny, Japan? I want a plain white button-down shirt and a plain brown blazer. Are you seriously incapable of providing these items? Is this like hard somehow?

A lot of the older kids are coming in early in the day now. I think they’re cramming for standardized testing now that school’s on break? Not sure. The life of a Japanese kid is a hard one.

Anyway, Kitty and the Devil came in early both yesterday and today. Like kids do when they see the adults fooling around on a laptop, they came over and looked over my shoulder. The Devil asked of my Kinuko Craft desktop background, “Who’s that?” I said, “I don’t know,” because I have no idea (it’s not from a McKillip book), and “She’s pretty, though!”

“No,” said the Devil in English.

“Yes, yes,” I said. “Kitty, is she pretty?”

Kitty, fearing the English, glowered at me and went to sit on the couch. She seems to be convinced the Devil is better at English than her, which is somewhat true, but only because Kitty never studies.

Then I showed the Devil the Conan the Barbarian video clip I downloaded for Little Miss Conan. She stood there and watched it to the end in perplexity, saying, “I don’t understand, I don’t understand.”

Yesterday I was brooding over a worksheet I was making for another class, and she came over and stood over my shoulder and looked at it. Then she leaned over and typed gibberish on it. “Oh yeah,” I said, “That’s English, right there. That’s absolutely English.” She nodded in agreement, then carefully erased both what she’d typed and what I’d typed. I then chased her away.

Cookie has also been hanging around the juku a lot the last couple days. Cookie’s a weird kid. He seems to have a fair amount of exposure to English somewhere in his life - maybe his family watches a lot of English-language TV? - because his pronunciation’s excellent, and he’s good at picking discrete phrases out of what I say and using them himself. “Oh, my god!” (from Previous Teacher) was his favorite for a while, and then “oh no” and “too bad” (from me). He’s also one of the ones who likes chanting “Yes, we can!” and “No, we can’t!” He’s always the first to get new vocabulary down, and he whispers answers to Zuzu all the time.

He doesn’t know very much vocabulary and structure compared to some of the study-prone kids like Mr. Sleepyhead and Mee - I think he’s only forgotten his homework once, but he doesn’t seem to do any prep beyond that, and he doesn’t always pay attention in class. He’ll ignore me and start talking to Zuzu, or grab a toy out of the box and start fooling with it, or wander over to the window or the bookshelf. So he’s not exactly a good student. He’s just got a really good instinct for which words in a sentence are the important ones. This is a superpower I wish I had.

(Goody Proctor seems to have this power as well - it’s pretty much what keeps her afloat, since she’s an even bigger slacker than Cookie - and possibly Mr. Wow, though it may just be his big vocabulary at work. I suspect Mr. Wow of being one of those unnatural children who actually enjoys studying like a good boy/girl. When he is slightly older he will own and use highlighter pens, and mark with those little Post-It flags the pages which he feels require the most careful perusal. Goody Proctor and Cookie, my spiritual kindred, will never do such a thing.)

Cookie’s kind of weird-looking. He’s one of my Exactly Three overweight students, and he’s got huge, bugged-out eyes that make him look kind of goofy, but he’s very self-possessed. He goes up to older students and teachers and calmly starts conversations with them, and when I say stuff to him in English, instead of getting self-conscious or glaring at me like most of the kids, he thinks about it and comes up with a response. Today I was copying some coloring sheets, and he came over and looked at them:

“Wow!” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Definitely wow. More monsters to color.” (This week it’s some octopus-mermaids.)

“Monster!” he said, and then in Japanese, “I want to color one.”

Because his class is on Saturday, I said, “Nope. Not today. You can have one this weekend.”

“‘Not today,’” he said in English, making his concentration-face, which makes his eyes seem to bug out even more. “‘Not today.’ We’ll do them in class?”

“That is correct, sir!” This is one of my auto-phrases, possibly left over from some previous incarnation as a foppish dandy, which initially confused some of the kids because there’s no “yes” or “okay” in it. Cookie was one of the first ones to figure out that it signified approval.

Cookie also has excellent fashion sense. When I was going out for lunch, and he saw me putting on my bowler hat. (Another stylistic relic from my previous life.) His eyes got bigger, and he pointed to it and said in Japanese, nodding approvingly, “That’s cool!” “That is correct, sir!” (This may be merely suck-up skills at work, but I actually don’t think so. Given the casual nature of his bad behavior in class - he doesn’t act up to annoy me, he does it because he’s not interested and doesn’t really care if I get annoyed - I don’t think he considers brown-nosing necessary.)

The grocery store and the strip mall next to it are connected by a sort of overhang. I always go through the overhang on the way to the store - there’s usually someone standing there texting, peering out in the parking lot for their ride. People park their bicycles there. Not a very exciting place.

At around eight or nine the other night, as I approached the overhang, I heard rap playing. Beneath it, two high-school boys with hoodies and a boom box were practicing their dance moves.

As I am a demon of disharmony, my mere nearness dissipating all music to nothing, my entrance stopped them, and they stood looking suspiciously at me as I walked past.

When I came back through on my way home, they were still practicing, but this time they were sufficiently in the zone that my brief presence did not destroy their synchronization. The song sounded rough enough that I suspect they recorded it themselves.

-

Today was the day for random strangers talking to me. On my way to work this morning I passed a six-or-seven-year-old boy who said to me solemnly, “Konnichiwa.” “Konnichiwa,” I said. On my way home, a teenaged boy on a bike said, “woh!” to me. I did not know how to interpret that, and anyway was tired, so I merely nodded. Woh.

Made it into Niigata and got my re-entry permit with no disasters. This is incredible. I don’t think I’ve ever had a disaster-free interaction with the Japanese government before. I was out of the immigration office in twenty minutes, about five of which were spent writing my address. I still haven’t memorized the kanji and my pen kept blotting.

The nearest train station, as well as a couple of the stops on the way into Niigata, seem to be run on sort of an honor system. There’s one small ticket vending machine, but no station attendants or ticket scanners. You put your ticket in a metal mailbox that says “tickets go here” when you come into one of these stations. Most people using the train are going to and from Niigata (which has proper ticket-checking counters), not from one unattended station to another. I’m guessing Japan Rail loses less money on this than it would cost to install scanners and pay attendants.

A five-or-six-year-old boy a few seats behind me on the bus had just gotten off an airplane, and his mom had gotten him some toy airplanes. He was telling stories about them, loudly so everyone on the bus could hear: “There were a lot of airplanes, and they crashed. And all the people living on the Earth died… Meanwhile, there were some airplanes, and they crashed. And all the people living in China died.” I’m not sure what his problem was with China in specific, but he sent his airplanes to destroy it two or three separate times.

Things that smell nice together: Nippon Kodo Mainichi blend incense, Earl Grey, and rain.

I woke up at two PM wanting bacon, so I went to the store, bought bacon, fried it, and ate it with fava beans and sushi rice. Fava beans seem to have more flavor frozen than fresh. They are not a very classy food in Japan - apparently, like edamame, you have them with beer at bars. My manager thinks it’s funny that I eat them so often.

It’s strange to walk outside on a warm day, sweating and feeling dumb for having worn my coat, and spot, through an abrupt gap in the houses, the mountains still covered with snow. It feels like someone might have cast a spell on them, to hold them back; or cast a spell on my coat.

A nice thing about living in a non-Christian nation is that the mail runs on Sundays. I have a tiny adorable Kodansha English Library edition of Comet in Moominland now, as well as a new Japanese textbook (for me) and a new English textbook (for Mee, Goody Proctor, and the Devil).

Self-destructively, I finished the second of Carol Berg’s Rai-kirah books and am working on the third. This is the basic plot progression of the series. I’m spoiling everything right here! Click on the cut only if you wish to bask in the brilliance of the best plot arc ever!

(The most recent Penny Arcade may be relevant to this post’s interests.)

Continue reading “Oh, Seyonne. You redeemer, you.”

My day was improved substantially by the Broodmaster’s failure to show up. The Broodmaster is so named because he sits silently and broods. He broods on the futility of life. I say, “The Broodmaster, please read this sentence aloud for me.” He broods on the transient nature of human relationships, on the uncertain definition of intimacy in a world in which most communication takes place via machines. I say, “The Broodmaster, the sentence that I am presently pointing to. With my finger.” He broods on the disdain felt by his father’s generation towards his own due to their profligate consumption habits, despite the ironic truth that it is this very profligacy that now upholds the Japanese economy. I wave the flashcards under his eyes. He says sulkily, “何?”

Anyway, he didn’t come in today. So that was nice.

Randomly no work today, so I meant to go into Niigata and get my re-entry permit. I laid down on the floor for a second at noon, thinking I should leave within the next hour, and woke up at 6:30 PM.

I do feel better now, though! My stomach was really upset this morning.

Cut for mild grossness.

Continue reading “I have done something terrible.”

Carol Berg, Transformation and the first half of Revelation. There is a basically nice guy named Seyonne who wants to save the world from demons. Why he wants to do this is unclear, because the world seems to be pretty awful. He tries to help people, and for his troubles he is enslaved and sexually assaulted and tortured in increasingly horrendous ways. His best friend and his wife and his wise mentor and everyone else in the world betray him horribly with regularity, and he forgives them because he is just that great.

I read the first book a while ago, and thought it was a little too mean for me. I read Barbara Hambly and Susan R. Matthews, so that’s pretty mean. The second one manages to be meaner. As of page 170-something (wherever I stopped), Seyonne is suspended in a magical dimension of pain being sexually abused by demons, and a human guy has shown up and told him that the worst is yet to come. Well, yip-pee.

(Seyonne ended up in a magical dimension of pain because he was trying to do a good deed that his friends thought was madness, which is the way he always ends up in a magical dimension of pain. Sometime I would like him to end up in a magical dimension of pain because he went to get a friggin’ danish or something. Just for variety’s sake.)

Basically it is something you should only read when you are in a very bad mood. Hopefully, today this will cease to describe me for long enough that I can put in the necessary effort to switch to another book.

T. A. Pratt, Blood Engines - I got about fifty pages into this. It’s a book about two cold-blooded powerful women fighting each other, so I wanted to like it. But it is so clunky. The protagonist and her amoral brain-eating servant and the evil Chinese wizard and the ex B-movie actor all talk exactly the same way. Characters wander in and out of the story at random like they are waiting for somebody to finish shoe-shopping. There is a scene with two guys flirting that reads like Pratt read on the internet that some women find that sort of thing interesting. It’s not even interestingly badly-written, it’s just badly-written. It sits there.

Cut for hissy fit. Continue reading “I hate you all.”

I gave the kids a flying spaghetti monster coloring sheet today. I was a little worried that they might read His noodly appendages as something, you know, bad - being Japanese, and thus immersed in Japanese culture as they are. I showed it to my manager first:

Me: Do you think this coloring sheet’s okay? Is it scary or anything?

Manager: What? - what is that?

Me: The spaghetti monster.

Manager: A spaghetti monster! That’s cute!

Me: It’s big in America.

Manager: Is it a cartoon?

(I know from two past experiences that it can take upwards of twenty minutes to explain the concept of “creationism” to a Japanese person.)

Me: No… uh… it’s an internet joke.

Manager: What do you mean, “internet joke?”

Me: It’s kind of hard to explain…

Manager: No, no, somehow I understand.

Good to know that the essential internet-ness of the internet makes it across cultural barriers. “It’s from the internet” is a perfectly acceptable explanation for the spaghetti monster that is popular in America.

Of course, Jerky Kid looked at it and immediately said, “This looks like porn!”

Here’s that conversation in Japanese, for people who want to practice their mad translation skillz. Continue reading “Nantonaku wakarimasu.”

No, I’ve never actually watched it before! I just read the manga. I’d heard the general population of LiveJournal saying it had influenced Princess Tutu a lot, but I didn’t realize it was that much. Tutu’s fairy-tale narrator openings are a direct visual rip from the opening of the first episode! The shadow puppets’ voices are like the crows’ voices!

The music is deeply insane.

So far, I’m liking Wakaba and Utena’s relationship more in the anime than in the manga. In the manga Wakaba’s feelings for Utena were set up as being pitiable, because Utena herself didn’t do anything to indicate she felt anything for her, and because Wakaba was so jealous and insecure. Here, they actually seem to be friends - Utena teases Wakaba without Wakaba freaking out! (Though Wakaba doesn’t know about Anthy yet, so there’s still time for the dynamic that bugged me in the manga to develop, I guess.)

(I’m very smug how much of the Japanese I can understand. I turned away from the screen to check on something for a few seconds, and understood nearly all of the dialog without looking at the subs. It wasn’t a scene that used many complicated words, but still! I kinda speak Japanese! (Working for a Japanese company does not do much to convince me of this, because whenever they want to tell me something important, they have the English-speaking guy do it.))

Somehow or other, a four-year-old whose Mom is thinking about enrolling him ended up sitting in on my class with Mr. Wow today. I’d been told his Mom would just be out there watching, but nope, they sent him into the classroom.

Mr. Wow is named both for his fondness for the word “wow” and for his habit of surprising me by how quickly he catches onto everything. He’s only six, but he’s on about the same level as most of the eight- and nine-year-olds. And I’m thinking of speeding up his lessons some more, because I end up running out of activities before class is over.

So the four-year-old was totally lost, so I finished up Mr. Wow’s stuff early and spent the last twenty minutes on simple games he could join in. (I think four-year-old’s Mom’s actually already decided to enroll him, but I don’t feel I know him well enough to assign a blogname yet.) If I’d known about this in advance, I’d probably have been worried that Mr. Wow would be a little stuffy about the kid in the room - he knows he’s smart, because adults tell him so all the time. But Mr. Wow was awesome. He was totally a little nanny, helping me corral the kid back into the room when he tried to run outside, offering him toys and showing him how to play the games and everything.

Our vocab for the month is injury-and-disease-related words: “I have a [cough, headache, sore throat, etc.].” is the sentence they’ve got to get down. When we were doing coloring at the end of class, four year old kept up a constant stream of chatter about what he was doing to his sheet. Mr. Wow commented to me in Japanese, “He’s pretty noisy, isn’t he.”

“Yeah, well, he’s four.”

Mr. Wow nodded - and I think he actually understood the sentence. He said in English, “I have an earache!”

And basically I laughed at that for the rest of class. (Shut up, this is really impressive. I’ve never had any of the other kids his age make a joke in English.)