#63

i was going to begin with a post about the absurb amount of japanese national holidays, but i was quickly distracted by the fact that this is my 63rd post in this blog within a period of about six months. if i could put together around 100 posts within the course of a year then id have pretty much written a book at this point. time flies...

but onto japanese national holidays...they are ridiculous in number. on monday it was "respect for the aged" day as a tribute to the elders of japan i guess. today its another national holiday...not sure what its called, maybe "ode to autumn" or something silly like that. last month it was ocean day as a national holiday. actually, today is the first national holiday outside of golden week in may that ive actually been able to have off from work. my day off is on a monday and almost all public holidays to this point have fallen on a monday. thankfully, the holidays from this point on fall on odd days like wednesday, saturday, and friday, so i can take advantage of them.

and to tell you the truth, i think the japanese deserve all of the holidays they can get. many of my students are working 6 days a week, overttime every day without fail, and do stupid hours like 12-15 hours a day. any break they can get i think is welcome.

whats going on

actually not much. just settling into the post summer vacation work stretch. tomorrow is a public holiday which is my usual day off so i dont get an extra day off, but friday is also a public holiday so ill get to take advantage of that soon enough. plus, this is a kids free week...all adult lessons which should make it a super easy week of work.

among things that ive done in the past few weeks:

- sent my cell phone into vodafone for 2 weeks for repairs...just got it back tonight. for japan their english services are quite acceptable, its actually better service than youd get at home. all repairs totally free, no questions asked.

- im looking into buying an apple ibook, or an apple ipod, or both. my roommate mike has an ibook and my roommate paul has an ipod, and i envy both. theyre so much easier to use than pcs with windows and are so much more cool and reliable too.

- celebrated amandas birthday this past wednesday by going out to an izakaya until 3am on a worknight...went out again last night late with friends here for the same reason.

- getting full paycheques for the first time starting this september so money is no longer a worry, thank god.

- going to buy some new work clothes...mostly shirts and ties since the japanese business attire here is very fashionable, cheap, and half of my shirts have stained collars from all the sweating i did this summer. plus i could use a new tie or two.

- watching espn sportscenter and cnn newsnight more regularly now so i no longer feel alienated from sports and current events. entered a fantasy football league where i got hammered my first week, partly because my best players played poorly and also because one of my best players, javon walker of the packers, suffered a season ending injury. my luck. they play nfl games on nhk here, but the commentary is in japanese and the games dont start until 1am.

- went to my first sushi restaurant where the sushi is on a conveyer belt last week. they have them in vancouver but theyre generally all you can eat places with poor quality sushi that people sneeze on, cough on, ect...the sushi at this place was excellent and you pay by the color of the plate that you pick up. its just stressful though because if you see something you like but are unsure of eating, then pass up on it, you either have to wait 10 minutes to see it again or wont see it again at all because somebody else had the good sense to pick it up.

- weather is cooling off here a little...its back to how it was in may and june, really really nice without the humidity

- there was a big election here last week where the ruling liberal democratic party led by prime minister junichiro koizumi won a overwhelming majority of seats in the lower house. if youve ever seen the japanese pm koizumi on tv, his hair looks exactly like richard geres, so much so that richard gere is a major celebrity here because of the resemblance. i once saw gere on a japanese variety show a couple of months ago and he looked ridiculous, totally lost.

thats about all for now...sorry for the lack of communication lately but im working on some stuff that im about to send home soon.

more later.

typhoon warning

so currently its 1am on a tuesday night here in nagoya and were in a typhoon warning right now. apparently its not going to hit nagoya, just kyushu and hokkaido, but theres still some pretty good howling wind outside right now. theres actually been a few typhoon warnings up to this point but nothing has hit yet...this one will hit in the lowest sense of the word, just some strong wind and rain and thats all. apparently last year nagoya got a few typhoons, one or two closed the schools for a day. id like to get a typhoon so i could get a day off work.

speaking of typhoon/hurricanes, i pretty much only watch a few tv shows over here: sportscenter, the simpsons, 24, trailor park boys, and cnn. and ive been watching a ton of cnn the past week about the disaster that has befallen the gulf coast of the united states. tragedy to say the least...but i heard one tv commentator say that when a natural disaster strikes then the fabric of a nation is exposed to the general public for all to see. so if anybody ever thought that the united states (or any western nation) was free of problems of race and class, or that poverty had been close to elimated in first world countries because the "economy" was sound, then this should be an eye opener for them. im not really interested in blaming the government for a bad response, its pretty obvious they blew it and they even admit it at this point. im interested in how many people become aware of some significant problems that may have been under the nose of the national media but have been brought to the surface (pardon the pun) by a hurricane and a flood.