迷失的老美

Well, it’s been over a month since my arrival, and my classes have been the most pointless worthless pieces of crap ever devised. Imagine if you will: students with 3 months of experiance and students up to 3 years of Japanese study being placed into the SAME class. Oddly, the Oral Interview yielded the same results for everyone… “beginner elementary level”. The teacher knew it was bullshit but could do nothing about it. First time I mentioned this was on Thursday, I did so nicely, asking kindly for a better class more my level and pace, as well as for the other student who is rather good. They smiled and nodded and did nothing. Yesterday, I was slightly more stern… still polite though. They did nothing again. Today was different.

Today started with the pointless class as usual, where i have to focus more on staying awake than the “lesson”. Followed shortly thereafter by a nice chat with the teacher where it is discovered that he is pissed too for the same reason I am and they told him no. A quick break for lunch and then I am off to the office. I told them that I need a new class NOW and I don’t care who it is taught by, only that it is taught at a real level, has tests, has homework, has a textbook, and moves faster than the class I would be in if i was in the states. I know exactly what I need to improve my Japanese and I laid it out. They said they would get back to me. I said that if I did not have these requirements met I would receive no credit at my home university for these classes. This followed by a deadline of the end of the week and something along the lines of “I would like to stay here for the full year as planned and be able to say good things about this school and program, but as it stands neither of these will be possible without the classes I require”.

BAM

The shit eating smiles on their faces die and fall off like leaves in autumn. They are serious, they know I am serious. I have delivered an ultimatum that can come back to bite them in the asses personally if they don’t get me my class… best of all, is that they know it. I dropped off all relevant information for the book I would be using in the states, my cell number, and left them in shock. I then proceeded to contact the program directors for IES and inform them of the situation and the contact info for the people I had just spoken to. I now have the added pressure of two people who get paid on commission and want to keep me here on my side, focused on the same targets as my own. Oddly, I have seen both staff members of the office running around all day today and talking to teachers, hearing my name and the name of the other student as I pass by. They got hit with something they never expected out of me, a direct threat to their credibility as a school. And thanks to being in school for far too long and having contacts, I could have the school most likely blacklisted at most US unis as “bad” in not so short a time. Name dropping also seems to work quite well in the form of “Do you know this textbook? I know the authors personally”

I feel really good for the first time here.

Other fun news to report. In archery, the joy of being left-eyed and right-handed finally has been countered. I found that by placing a 1-yen coin in the tatami as a marker for my point of aim, and finding a distinct position to stand, I rock a lot more than I did before.

Also, English table has it’s perks besides the small amount of money that we still have yet to see any of. Yesterday, me and my roommate were requested to participate in an experiment for the Campus festival next week. Seems that 2 girls are testing the effects of alcohol on English SLA for Japanese L1 students. They need some native English speakers, and they are paying us in booze. Drunk for free on campus, doesn’t get much better than that.

Will report tomorrow (maybe, I’ll probably be wasted) on anything out of the ordinary or unusual. ie. getting real classes

Well, again, it’s been a while. Due not to to much being busy, as being lazy. In campus issues, we have been entrusted with actually using the real bows and ranges for archery and while we still do suck, it’s not as bad as we did before. I have found that it really sucks to be left eyed and right handed though. Also, we had a festival here and in Nagoya last weekend. I didnt get to the Nagoya one, I was too busy sleeping. But the Kasugai one was pretty sweet. We ended up being in the parade as a display of the internationalist faction of the city, ie. gaijins on parade. Hooked up with a bunch of Chinese and some French guys who I went drinking with and they paid. Same old same old for most of the classes here. Chinese is still my only really interesting one where I am learning anything. The pointlessness of the Japanese class has gotten to me and on Monday I am going to bring it up to the people in charge and demand a change as well as a guarantee for next semester. If they cannot or will not do that, I am changing to Beiwai next semester and that will be the end of my Japanese studies as far as i care. I am actually learning nothing in this class at all and it is a complete joke and waste of time. Michie (part of IES) agreed with this, and that made me a bit happy.

Business is working out pretty well, making some money, which was the goal, and I got the school to distribute the rest of my money. I am going to try not to tap into it and instead, boost it up for my return to China.

Natural disasters seem to love Japan. We have had a clusterfuck of typhoons and earthquakes lately. #23 hit us pretty hard and it was fun. Felt the earthquake yesterday too. 6.8 in Tokyo, just noticeable here in Kasugai. We are expecting typhoon #24 sometime soon too

Not much else to report of real significance apart from my English turning to crap more and more

Well, classes are going better, the Japanese classes are still a joke, but whatever. My chinese classes are fun, and right now that’s what matters to me. Having at least some form of sanity. The sociolinguistics class is a bit annoying, seeing as by writing a summary of the first half chapter, I in fact summarized the entire point of the book and disagreed with most of it. Get this, a book written in Japanese about comparing Japanese language and culture to essentially everything else, all at once and with no real focus… Just examples over and over again ad naseum. And the definitions are wrong to boot. It was translated into English by someone else, which goes to show that the author didnt have enough experiance in the other cultures he is talking about to actually judge them well. It is somewhat amusing. The teacher wanted a summary of the “points” in the chapter, I dug deeper and asked real questions (thanks to Eckman&friends for teaching me how to do that). I now have 2 different chinese classes, and they are great and the teachers love me. The normal Japanese students in the classes sleep, have horrible pronunciation as I expected, and have no idea what is going on. These are 2nd and 3rd year classes that are focusing on communication. Whatever, I can be the best in the classes and using their own language to explain the Chinese better than they can. Fun fun fun. Over the weekend I went drinking at a decent place that wasnt too bad in terms of price. $15 for all you can drink for 2 hours. This seems to be the way to do it. And, I have a few good Japanese friends to chat with who suck at English enough that they dont try. This is a good thing
Archery is getting more fun too. Getting better at it and they are letting me use a real bow and shoot at the 30m targets instead of the practice bows at 10m.

Jobs here… I have tried a little bit to get a simple job, and was met with more or less nothing but turndowns because of my gaijinness. Minimal language skills required which I easily meet, but yea… yay for Japan. I found a more promising thing though. Turns out that people outside of Japan want stuff FROM Japan and are willing to pay a bit for it. I have found good shipping rates and minions over here to help find items. I even signed up for a cardservices account, which is waiting to be activated, so I can avoid the sham which is paypal for orders. Paypal, it’s just like a real bank, but with none of the protections of a real bank. If I do this right, I will make people in the US happy, provide some work for about 5+ people over here who are in the same position as myself, and maybe be able to afford luxury items like food and transportation. Keep my own hours and not have a boss who pays me next to nothing. Even have an FDA account setup so I can legally import food to the US. Readers of this site, feel free to request stuff once I have it all setup

This brings me to my meeting with Seigo. I met him online in an IRC chat about a year and a half ago near the beginning of my self study of Japanese. And on Sunday, I met him in person for the first time. Cool kid, younger than me, but still pretty cool. We met up at 名古屋é under the éの時計 without much trouble finding each other. Then we started looking for stuff on the list of pending orders (mentioned above), so I could quote prices. We found most everything we set out to look for and then went to a 喫茶店 to chill out for a while. I was willing to pay half, but he insisted on treating me. Next time will be my treat. Cool guy and I am very happy to have met him at last in person.

Here are some pics for a change.
Me and 征吾

And some random amusing things from this crazy nation called Japan

This pretty much sums up Japan

Homo Sausage… two weiners in one sack

That sums up pretty much what’s going on right now.

Effie, sorry I havn’t been able to call you, but I have been a little busy, and the network has been odd/crappy as of late so skype isnt working from time to time. Get back online so we can 聊天 some

Mom & Dad, dont worry about the sales thing I found, I am doing this all by the book and it is legal. (sigh)