A baby and some break dancers

This is me at a restaurant where the bartenders let me have these glasses. There were only three pair and they got them in NY and they let ME have them! This has nothing to do with the post, but I'm sure it will make some of you all's day! :-D

So, unfortunately, I did not have my camera with me, so I didn't take any pictures. And the camera on my phone is not the best when there is no sunlight, even though it's a whopping 8.0 megapixels (for those of you that don't know, the higher the megapixels the better the image quality, my big nice awesome Sony camera is 10 megapixels. That's just a megapixel comparison, obviously my camera phone is nowhere near as capable as my awesome Sony camera, but anyway).

First, I'll start with some amazing news. My boss is pregnant!!! She has been trying to get pregnant for a while (with her HUSBAND all you judgementeralists!!!). From what I understand, she was always planning to leave Amity soon because she was trying to get pregnant. And just yesterday she found out she was pregnant. When one of my students wasn't showing up on time she was talking to me in the lobby and she said, "OH! Jeremy I have news!" I asked, "Good or bad?" and she said "Good! I'm pregnant!" I was floored by this, because I was expecting her to say something good about the company or something. One, it was refreshing to see her with a crazy happy genuine smile on her face (not a business "I have to be nice to you because you are my customer smile) because she is truly happy. I'm sure working around kids for two years and WANTING some of your own when you are married while you are trying can be tough on a person, but she's finally getting her wish and I wish her well. She told me she was nervous. I told her that my mom had me when she was 22 and I turned out GREAT so imagine how your kid will turn out (because she is older having her first child in comparison with my mom who had me very young, woah..realization..she had me at the age I am now...woah! anyway).

Yes, I just gave my mom a HUGE pat on the back, if you don't agree that she raised a great son (with the help of my dad of course) then why the heck are you even reading this blog to begin with, obviously I have something good to offer if you are reading about my life when you could be doing a BILLION other things! So thank you, from the bottom of my heart :-D.

So yes, my manager is pregnant. Secondly, I finally watched some break dancers today outside of the train station. I had been seeing them a lot, usually every weekend as I biked past the train station on the way somewhere or on the weeknights when I was biking home. Today I decided, what the heck, I'm going to stop. They were doing tricks on top of tricks on top of more tricks. If they were a car, they would have been tricked out *da da DING*. There were about six or seven of them and after about 15 minutes I asked them (in my LITTLE Japanese that I knew) if I could put my iPod in and let them jam to some of MY tunes. They let me (because Japanese people are AWESOME like that!) and they danced to one of my DJ Sega mixes (I'm not DJ Sega, but I had one of his mixes on my iPod) for about 20 minutes or so. And the best part is, I got in there are started dancing myself (not break dancing obviously) and they clapped for me. So yeah, imagine this tall black guy in his suit after work dancing with a bunch of b-boy Japanese break dancers out in front of a train station at 9:30 PM. It was awesome! One of the guys asked me where I was from, I told him I was Americajin and that I worked for Amity. I asked him how often they come out to practice and he told me every night at 9. So maybe one day I'll take my b-boy clothes to work with me, change afterwards and try to learn some of their break dancing moves. Here's hoping me and the pavement don't have another nasty encounter. :)

-Jeremy aka the future break dancer?

aaaaand I hit a curb...

This is what happens to your bike when you try to battle a curb
(And no this is not my bike I know some of you are wondering)

No, I didn't fall off of my bike again, but I definitely hit a curb...too fast. One teeny tiny small fact about Japan that I did not know before arriving. Japanese curbs are pretty high. They aren't so high as to make you fall forward on your bike (unless you are really just GUNNING it), but they are high enough that if you do not have a mountain bike and you try to have a one-on-one duel with the curb VS. your bike tire at high speeds, the curb will win my friend, the curb will win.

Last night on the way home from dancing I was going pretty fast. I had my bike in third gear and I was blazing down the deep dark sidewalks of Tottori Japan. Suddenly I realized I was going a bit too fast as I approached *DUN DUN DUUUUNN* The Curb!!! I couldn't slow down fast enough and I went over the curb pretty hard. I managed to stay on my bike, but something was different. Something that wasn't happening before I hit the curb was now happening. At first I tried to ignore it, then it started to make itself known more and more and more to the point where I actually had to stop my bike to check and make sure it wasn't what I thought and knew that it was. Yup, my tire is flat. Specifically my front tire had gone flat.

I thought to myself, "Maybe this had just been happening over time and the curb took the last bit of air out of the tire". Yeah, that was a stupid idea because that is obviously not what happens. To put it simply, I got in a battle with a curb and the curb won. Flawless. Victory. (For those of you that don't know that's a Mortal Kombat reference, I was watching it last night). This afternoon when I woke up I decided to go to the store and buy a pump in the hopes that it was just a flat tire that needed to be pumped back up. As I was trying to pump up the tire nothing was happening. It just seemed to stay flat. I thought I might have been doing something wrong when I finally decided to believe that, yes, my inner tube had a hole in it because of the battle with the curb the night before.

As I am obviously getting nowhere in pumping up my tire, a Japanese man, whom I believe lives in my building, came up to me and started speaking Japanese while pointing at my bike. From what I gathered, and from what little Japanese I spoke and understand and what little English he spoke and understands, there was a bike shop RIGHT across the street from where I live. This I did not know. Only one problem, he told me it was closed today, but he told me there is another bike store very close that could fix my inner tube. The guy was so awesome, he drew me a map and I knew exactly where it was. As I thanked him, he literally ran off because it seemed as if he was late for something, even though while he was helping me he did not seem anxious at all.

I took my bike over to the shop and got it fixed. I wasn't sure if I was in the right spot so in my broken Japanese I tried to ask "Where is the bike shop?", but stupidly, I was standing in it, haha. After I failed to communicate anything to the man working at the store, he decided to just come out and look at the bike. He saw that the front tire was flat and I did some gestures that let him know I tried to pump it up, but it wouldn't pump up. I kept telling him "Wakari masen, goemnai sai" which means, "I don't understand, I'm sorry". And from what TEENY bit of Japanese I know, he kind of smiled and said "Ah, he doesn't know Japanese." And kind of chuckled about it. But either way, he patched up my inner tube and I was able to get riding within fifteen minutes. It was amazing because I thought I would have to leave my bike overnight somewhere and he just dropped what he was doing to fix my inner tube. That was great!

So, to date, I have had to have my bike fixed three times.

1) Back tire was flat and innertube seemed to be messed up, I got a new tire.
2) My seat was out of WHACK and wouldn't go back down into the bike because the rod was bent on the end and it slowly started to lean back so far it looked as if I was low-riding everywhere on my bike. Got a new seat and a new rod.
3) My front inner tube got a hole in it because it lost a bout with a curb, got my inner tube patched.

I've only been with Andre a couple of months and already I've had to fix her up a bit. Andrea is the name of my bike for those of you who are a bit confused.

Things are still going swimmingly in Japan. I got a gym membership and I am getting back on my workout grind. Gotta look good for the summer. Oh, and I bought Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete on Blu-Ray disc the other day along with a ton of other Final Fantasy VII stuff. I love that this country has everything that makes me ecstatic!! I gotta give props to Armella that statement because she IMed me saying, "I love how Japan has everything that makes you ecstatic!" It's so true! JERPAN yay!!

-Jeremy aka If I have to get my bike fixed one more time...

NANI?! (WHAT!?!)

This has nothing to do with the post (the picture I mean), but it is a teaser to the pictures I'll be posting later. Enjoy this one picture and happy reading.
Oh! By the way. This is Sakura (Cherry Blossom)

Pictures

So today started off beautifully. The sun was shining, I didn't have to go into work until 12:00 (really 11:45 because 15 minutes early is on time), the Sakura were out (Cherry Blossoms) and Becca was having the best morning ever, so I was feeding off of her energy as well. Additionally, we knew that we were going posting.

For those of you who don't know what posting is, it's basically handing out fliers mailbox to mailbox so that we can try to get more children to come to Amity. "Why don't you just take out an ad on TV Jeremy?" That's the same thing that I asked, but I'm sure it's a lot cheaper for them to ask us to do it for them, and frankly, I don't mind. It's nice to be able to get out of the school for a couple hours, pop on the iPod and just drop fliers off in mailboxes while all at the same time realizing "Wow, I'm in Japan...dropping off fliers in mailboxes...wow! Yay!"

So when we got to work it was going to be me, Becs, and another Japanese English teacher who teaches computer classes named Kei (KAY). She is really quiet, but she is extremely nice. So Kei drove me and Becs in her car and we went to the area where we were going posting. We got to the posting area at about 12:20. We decided to each take a side of the street, Becca would take the middle, I would go to the right and Kei would go to the houses on the left. We were to meet back at 12:45. I'm walking around, doing my posting, listening to some Angel Taylor (and if you don't know who she is, look her up, she opened for Adele when I went to her concert in Philly, she's AWESOME!), and having a good time. I dropped off about 33 fliers in mailboxes (yes I was counting, because we are supposed to). It's close to 12:45, so I begin to head back to meet with Kei and Becca and go to another posting area. As I met them back at the car we realized something. Kei does not have her keys. They are not in any of the bags that we had for holding our fliers, they were not in Kei's pockets and obviously they were not in me or Becca's pockets.

We started searching everywhere Kei could have stepped looking for her car keys. She kept saying, "I'm sorry, Gomenai (it's an informal term for sorry in Japanese)." And we kept telling her, "No, it's ok Kei (yeah I did not mean for that to rhyme)". We searched for about half an hour when our manager came to pick us up (because Kei did have her phone with her). Before my manager got there however, I realized something. I left my backpack in Kei's car. Yup, that's my Wallet, DS, PSP, my Pikachu hat, my Nintendo hat, my gloves, my Harry Potter book (the second one, yeah I know, I'm behind), my phone, my "Everyday Japanese" book, an "Easy Hiragana (one of the writing systems in Japan)" book, and a notebook. Yeah, it kinda sucked, but at the same time, I knew it was safe, it was all just a manner of WHEN am I going to get it back, especially since I had NO money for lunch that day.

As we got back to the school me and Becs had to ask for some money from our manager so that we could eat (because Becca's money AND her lunch were also in the bag). Once Kei found that out she was SOOO sorry. And we didn't even want her to feel worse than she was because really folks, it happens to the best of us. Alls well that ends well right? She had a spare key at her house, so after work today she went to her house, got taken to her car, and got our stuff out and brought it to me and Becs. On top of that (and THIS is one of the many reasons I adore the Japanese...simply ADORE them), she got us some snacks. A milk tea, a really sweet bread bun, some potatoe sticks and something that looks like Jell-O pudding. She really did NOT have to do that, but she did, she's so sweet. So yes, I have my bag back, I have my money back, I have my PSP and DS back (thank GOD!) and my Pikachu hat (yay!) and all the other stuff that I mentioned.

Second story.

I teach babies. Yes, you heard me, babies. I teach little tykes who don't even talk in Japanese yet, I teach them English. I teach a particular group of babies who are two years old. They are sweet little children. There's only one problem, make that two. There are a pair of twins in the class. Now, honestly, this isn't too bad, but I really feel bad for the mom. Because the baby classes are a class where the moms come in and they basically learn WITH their babies so that there is a deeper connection with them and their children with the English language. I know some of you may think it's pointless, but it's really not. The hard part is there is usually one mom to one child, well, since one mom has twins she has two children. So we have three babies and two moms and a teacher. If one of the twins starts to cry or get out of control and the other is listening and interacting, what is the mom to do? Well that happened today.

One of my children (Masayuki...MAH-SAH-YOU-KEE) started crying, and his mom just let him keep crying, which I understand because she tried to help him and he didn't want it and his twin sister Fuka (FOO-KAH) was listening. So he's whining and crying a bit, but nothing too extreme. All of a sudden, and I'm not quite sure when, we are doing "Yellow Banana" and BOTH of the twins start crying. So the mom, who isn't but so big, is holding both of her children who are SCREAMING and the other mom who has a daughter named Honokoa (HOH-NO-KOH-AH) is trying to ignore it and follow the lesson. At one point Masayuki (the boy) is crying and he sees his sister Fuka crying and all of a sudden he just SLAPS her across the face, pretty hard. The mom, bless her heart, you could tell she wanted to do something, but she was torn between the lesson and trying to get her children to stop crying. Now I know some of you are thinking, "If that had been my child I would have this that and the third." Guys, you gotta understand something about Japanese culture, at least the little that I know about it. When you are in a professional setting where you have to show someone respect, you put your problems aside to try to accomadate them as best you can. Now I'm not saying she shouldn't have tried to reprimand her child, but I also believe that she understood that she still wanted to COMPLETE the lesson and if she had scolded him and been harsher too her son right then and there then there is no TELLING how loudly or how much longer he would have cried. But anyway, back to the story.

They kept crying for what felt like 10 minutes but it was probably half of that. Finally, the mom of the twins says something to the other mom in Japanese. I think she was telling her, "Ok, I'm going to take them out, I'm sorry to interrupt the lesson, but I'm going to take them out." I don't know if she said I'm sorry, but for her to say something to the other mom at all instead of just taking the children out, I'm sure she was asking if it was ok, maybe not, but maybe, all I know is that when the twins mom got done talking to the other mom, both of the kids stopped crying, looked at me and waved GOODBYE. And me and the other mom looked at each other and LAUGHED. Because it's almost like they were intentionally doing all this JUST so they could get out, and once they got it, they were basically like, "Peace Jeremy Sensei, I'm out this B!" So I look at the clock and the lesson is only halfway over (20 minutes). The next few minutes went by peacefully and then the twins come back in the room. But good news, one of the other moms came in to help the mom of the twins so we now have three moms and three babies. The lesson went smoothly after that.

That was my FIRST class today. My manager came to me afterwards and with concern asked, "Are you ok?" And I said, "Yeah, it was just crazy, I can't believe Masayuki hit Fuka, but yes, I'm ok." She did the same thing last Saturday when I had to hold two kids who were CRYING in my ear, one from missing his mom and the other because he saw I was holding the one that was missing his mom.

Whew! At any rate, it was an eventful day. I will update this post later with some pictures of the cherry blossoms. I don't want to do it yet because I am going out to sit under them again this weekend and I will take some more pictures, so I'll put them all up at once. I hope everyone is well. Ja mate ne!

-Jeremy aka the guy who realized it was a possibility that he MIGHT not eat lunch....

Even Picnics

WEE!!!

Sorry to keep you all waiting for the wonderful awesome news that Japan is still wonderously awesome. The reason that I haven't posted in a little while is because there hasn't been a HUGE story that has happened (like me falling off of the bike) and I've been pretty busy in this thing we call real life, too.

Last week we had to fill out progress reports and make certificates (i.e. "graduation" cards for the kids when they finished the course for the year). I had about 40 something to write up. So I had to rank them in their pronunciation, itonation, interest level and so on. I also had to write up a little paragraph saying how they have done this year.

You might say, "Jeremy, but you've only been there two months, how on earth can you know how they've done the whole year?" Then I would say, "Young grasshopper, always remember to think before you open your mouth and remember that there are other progress records that were already done in the past by the person that I replaced. Therefore young one, I was able to look at the scores from past progress and relate into my own for the present. One who is wise will understand all these things. Take them, and go, my child."

So I was busy with that, busy with familiarizing myself with my new schedule, busy with extra lessons to try to get children to come to Amity, by interesting them with a trial lesson or having a "Hello" lesson with them to introduce them to me since I'm new. And hopefully, new students will come to take my courses. Well, all is well in Jeremy land as far as new students signing up. I had a trial lesson with one little girl who is about 8 years old and she decided to take my class. Another three year old girl liked me so much that she told her father that she wants to take my class. I've only been here two months folks, and in that manner of time, I had a hand in bringing new students to the school, excuse me while I pat myself on the back *pat pat pat*.

Forewarning, this will probably be a long post as I have a few things to talk about. First, let's talk about my first baby lesson. That's right all, I teach babies. Not the "goo goo ga ga" babies, but 1 and 2 year olds. Now before you go making the same mistake and asking another quesiton, how about I explain to you that this is a class with the mothers as well. Any Psychology majors, or anyone with any knowledge of how the human brain functions will know that from 0-4 years old your brain is a sponge. So although the 1 and 2 year olds may not be speaking much English, they are taking in everything that is being said to them. And when the moms also repeat what is being said in English, they take it in even more.

Last week I had three (count it) three baby lessons. I have not had a baby lesson since my second day of training, and I was nervous. The night before I had a dream that I showed up to Amity with just a t-shirt and underwear on. I also was doing everything wrong that day, including, when I actually changed into clothes, wearing street clothes instead of my suit. Yes, I was nervous. You might be wondering why. Well, unlike the other lessons, the baby lessons are EXTREMELY structured. There is room for improvisation, but it is a pretty structured lesson for 40 minutes with almost no downtime . So I was hoping I didn't skip a part, or mess up, or anything, and those of you that know me know that I have a history of worrying a little bit too much when I don't need to.

Well, this case was no different. All three of my baby lessons went extremely well. Of course there were things I could have done better, but there were a LOT of things I could have done worse. The best part about the baby lessons, were of course, the babies. Every time I pulled out a book for a baby to look at, she would immediately go to her moms bag and grab her copy of the book. She's only 1. Her name is Honoka (like Hannukuh), and she's a sweetheart. At first she was scared of me and would only stay by her mother, then, I started acting like only I do and she probably figured "Oh wow, this guy is sillier than I am, he's not scary." So, my baby lessons went well.

Remember the little boy who always decides he's done listening to me and he acts like the Shinkansen (the bullet train)? Yeah, this next story involves him, his name is Atsuke (AHT-SOO-KEE). Last week and this week we are learning our colors. I would go through my flash cards and have all three boys repeat after me (these boys are three, by the way). However, when I got to Green (two weeks in a row mind you) Atsuke and Tomonori (TOH-MOH-NOH-REE) would start yelling at each other. Obviously I only know a tiny tiny eensy weensy teensy bit of Japanese, so I have no clue what they are saying. I know they are arguing about what is on the card though. The card says "Green" and it has a picture of a green parrot. I don't know what it is they were arguing about, but it SOUNDED something like this.

A: Green! Look, the bird is sitting on a branch!
T: NO! He's not, he's in a cage!
A: A BRANCH!
T: A CAGE!
A:A BRANCH!
T: A CAGE!
.
.
.
.

And so on and so on. At one point Tomonori actualy hit atsuke when I had my back turned. It was CRAZY! It got so bad that Atsuke kept trying to open the door, leave the classroom and go to his mom. All three of the little boys moms wait in the lobby while their sons are in class. And it doesn't stop there, Tomonori's mom actually SAW him hit Atsuke. I literally turned my back for 3 seconds to grab what I was using next for the lesson, I look up, Tomonori is hitting, and I look at the window that is in the classroom (that doesn't look to outside, but let's the people in the hallway see the classroom) and I see Tomonori's mom. Her face was so mad. She didn't LOOK angry, but you could tell she was shocked angry kind of thing. And she wasn't mad at me, I know that for a fact. She was embarassed that her son was doing that. So I went over and separated them immediately and tried to talk some sense into them...yes...in English...so it didn't work, but later, the lesson KIND of got back on track. Oh well, all ended up being OK, cause kids are kids are kids no matter what country they are in. After class they were running around like nothing had happened at all. So goes life and the young ones.

NEXT! We have Ryo. Yes, the boy who fell asleep on me the first time I taught him. Or, rather, almost fell asleep. At Amity there is an opening we do for the lesson EVERY time to get the kids speaking English. We have a fake window with fake cards that have different types of weather on them. So we pull out the window and say "What's this?" and they say, "It's a window!" then we ask, "How do we open the window?" And they have to knock on the window and then I say, "Open the window 1..2..3" And then I ask "How's the weather?" and they say, "It's...." whatever is on the card. So I go through all of the weather with Ryo, who is a very smart three year old, and then we take a walk outside the classroom to the window that looks outside. I ask him, "How's the weather?" and he says "Rainy". And then we walk back into the classroom and I proceed to sing my "Weather" song. "How's the weather? It's RAY NEE (rainy)" and instead of saying rainy, cause he KNOWS it's rainy, he keeps yelling "SUNNY!!!" and I keep saying, "Ryo, no, it's rainy, you know it's rainy because you just told me it was rainy." So I start up again, "How's the weather..it's.." and he says "SUNNY!" and every time I say rainy, he overlaps it while screaming "SUNNY!" I couldn't help but laugh, and neither could he, but still, I was thinking to myself "COME ON RYO! It's rainy!!"

Another funny thing he did was when I was trying to teach him "cow". I kept saying, "Ok Ryo, say cow." and he would say "chow" and I said, no no, look at me, "cow". And he would say "chow" and I said, "No, no no, Ryo, say cow" and he would say "chow." So I thought for a second and said, "Say kick Ryo" and he said "kick" and I said, "Ok now say cow"..."chow.." DUDE!!! Oh well...

Oh, funny tidbit. All of me and Rebecca's older students, well not all of mine, but some of mine, think that me and becs are b/f and g/f. We've been here two months and they still don't believe us. One of my older students, who is a boy, was laughing after Rebecca walked out of the class I was teaching (she had to grab some stuff to work on for another class out of that room). And then the other two girls in the class who are 17 start laughing. And I said, "Nani (what?)" and Yuta (who is a boy, yes, it's a boys name) said, "Girlfriend" and I said, "NOOO!! Guys I told you last week, I DON'T have a girlfriend!" Cause a couple of my students had asked me a week ago if I had one and I told them I didn't. And yet again, they did not believe me. Man, these teenagers are funny. Anyway.

Lastly. I went on a picnic yesterday. We went to a place where there are a lot of sports fields, Gazeebo's and a massive slide. We actually had a barbecue. I had cow tongue for the first time, really good stuff if I do so say myself. And get this. This is another reason I just LOVE Japan. When is the last time you grilled noodles? I mean, BBQ style. Outside, seasonsed it, and grilled it on a grill? Really? You never have? OH! That's right! That's because no one ever thinks that you would even DO such a thing. But we DID here in Japan. And let me tell you without any bias (well maybe a little) they were probably the best noodles I've ever had in my entire life. SO good. I don't know WHAT seasoning they used, but good GRACIOUS it was wonderful! *sigh* I love this place.

Oh...lastly lastly. Japan is also cool because there are people from many different countries here. On Saturday night I met a guy from Napal, a girl from Greece, a girl from Spain, a guy from..I don't know exactly where but I think the middle east..and I think he was gay because of HOW he was trying to get me to dance with him, and another guy from Africa. I also saw a few Japanese people I recognized that I had met since I've been here, they were really cool, especially Narito (THE NINJA!). That's what he told me when I met him, I asked him his name and I said "NARUTO, like the character?!" and he said "NO...NARITO (Nah-REE-TOH) the NINJA!" There is no Narito the ninja ladies and gents, he was just being silly. So that's how I remember him now. Arigato gozaimashta for reading and enjoy the pictures. Ja mate ne!

Oh, the pictures are right under the top picture, click "WEE!"

-Jeremy aka The grilled noodle lover

It's like I waited my whole life...

This last one is for my kids at the daycare :-D

I came across some pretty nifty songs which are sung by some pretty nifty artists. I went out to the club last night and busted a lot of moves, so in honor of just how much of a kid I am and yet how I can still do "grown up" stuff like going out to dance at clubs I have decided to make all of you smile with these songs by artists you probably know. Oh, and to all the parents, it is kid friendly (so mothers approve...KIX!)

-Jeremy aka the "Bust a move"er

A few things

Pretty Artistic ay? Yeah..I took this :-D
More artisticness and photos HERE.

So this is just a quick post with some new pictures. A couple of observations and realizations.

1) It is really good that I have a light on my bike at night because there have been many times where I could have been riding too fast and re-created my biking accident if I could not see a curb.

2) Japanese internet is ridiculously fast.

3) "DVD" shops are not really for DVD's....regular DVD's that is...they are more for...Adult Entertainment. I had to learn that the hard way.

Story time, quickie version. In the pictures you will notice a building called Sega World. Yes, Sega, like Sonic the Hedgehog. It's an arcade. It was a fairly decent place, it wasn't the best, but they did have Tekken 6 so I had a good time with that. And it was only (roughly) 50 cents a play. But anyway, on my way to Sega World (because it took about 25 minutes by bike to get there...give or take a few), I passed a "DVD" shop. I was excited because I am looking for a Blu Ray version of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children and it is supposed to be released in Japan before it comes out in America. The reason I want it so badly is because it has a demo of the new Final Fantasy XIII video game (which is going to be AWESOME!). I thought that this movie was supposed to be released sometime in March so I figured I would go check out this store since I passed it and look around. When I peered in the window I noticed something strange, "It all looks like adult entertainment," but then I thought "This can't be true, because it says DVD shop, like wouldnt there be some circle with a line through it that is over the number "18" if this was an adult entertainment shop. So I ventured in, hoping that it wasnt ALL adult entertainment. Well..it was...and after staying in there for an hour just wondering WHY it was all adult entertainment, I bought a few things and left. JUST KIDDING! So after I realized it was all just..that...I left, astounded that a "DVD" shop was basically a porno place. Crap, finding this Blu-Ray disc was going to be harder than I thought if EVERY "DVD" shop is an adult entertainment shop.

But anyways, you might say "Well maybe it was just that one." Well..you'd be wrong. I went to another more BIGGER "DVD" shop that I pass all the time going to different places in the city. So finally I decided to check it out. They had some American movies in there so I figured "This has to be legit"...well...it wasn't. There were a few "regular" movies, but all in all, yup, more of the same. And the funny thing is, the guy that worked there kept asking me to put my bag in a locker. It was a fairly spacious store, I guess he didnt want me "sneaking some home". Once I understood what he was saying and I understood that they did NOT have Blu-Ray, I left, oh well, there is always online ordering.

But secondly. I went to a Shrine today, watched some people pray and learned about some religious things. We had off today because today (March 20th) is supposed to be the Spring Solstice and the day when you honor your ancestors by visiting them at their graves. Pretty respectful stuff I'd say. I took pictures of that as well. Everything is still going fantabulous and I'm loving Japan, I just hope I can find a REGULAR dvd shop that sells Blu-Ray...oh wait..that one in the mall...but that is a 30 minute bike ride, hmm I'll have to check that out again next month. I found out Blu-Ray FF7:Advent Children got pushed back to April. Wish me luck! :-D

-Jeremy aka The Realizationer

Japan really does have nice people; funny kids; and creative high school students

It wasn't this particular Family Mart that I was at, but this is the convenience store that I went to when....oh..you'll see..keep reading :-D

So I teach all age ranges at my wonderful school of Tottori Amity, but there is one class that is pretty unique. It's not necessarily my favorite, but it does make me laugh. I teach three 3-year-olds for 45 minutes every Thursday (mokuyobi). All three of them are unique in their own way. We have one boy, named Atsuki (AHH-T-SOO-KEE) who loves loves loves the Bullet Train, or the Shinkansen (same thing). And he is by far the smartest one in the class. However, at times, if he decides he's just done learning for the day he starts rotating his arms like a train wheel and starts making *chckk chckk chckk* sounds while walking around the room.

Then we have Tomonori (TOH-MOH-NOH-REE) who likes to jump on me and bite my shirt. Yesterday he was actually running really fast and jumping into me as I was trying to sit on the floor and teach the children "Big dog! Little dog! Big fish! Little fish! Yellow duck!" He was more interested in smiling really wide, laughing loudly and running around.

Then we have Ayumi (AH-YOU-ME he's a boy). This kid literally has pulled out a menu from some sort of restaurant and has gotten both of the other boys to be more interested in that, than my lesson. So yesterday I was trying to teach "That". So I grabbed his menu and threw it across the room and yelled "That!" and they said "THAT!". So it's all fun.

But the funniest part of the lesson is asking them, "How are you?" Because they have learned, from my Mario Emotion Faces that Amy made for me my first week of training, "Surprised, Happy, and Angry." And it's so funny, if one of them says they are "Angry" the other one picks "Surprised" and the other one picks "Happy" And they do the motions with the emotions as well.

For example, I asked Ayumi "How are you?" and he says "AAAHHHNNGGREEE!!" and I aksed Atsuke "How are you?" and he put up his hands and made his mouth into an "O" and said "SURPRISED!" and I asked Tomonori, "How are you?" and he smiled and said "HAHPEEE!!" I love those kids, it's too bad they aren't signing up for the new school year. I'm going to miss Atsuki's fo-hawk.

Ok so I figured something out. Japanese people are as nice as I heard they were. A few days ago I went to the convenience store on my lunch break and got some food and some coffee to keep me awake and energized for the rest of the day with my kids. As I walk in, a 60 something year old man (rokujuu) stops me and says "Why are you in Tottori?" I could tell that's NOT what he wanted to ask me, but I answered his question anyway. I showed him my Amity nametag and said "I work at Amity, I teach English." His face looked as if that's not what he wanted to know, but it was still an interesting fact. So I then told him, "I'm from America" and he said "OHHHH AMERICA!" And then I told him I don't live far from where we were at and that I'm staying in Tottori (just to re-iterate one more time). And he looked at me and nodded his head. Well I got my stuff and walked out. As I was headed to my bike he stopped me and said, "Do you like wine?" and I was so shocked by the question that I had no idea how to answer. Not because I didn't know if I liked wine or not but I didn't want this guy to think we were about to go drink wine RIGHT then...I was on my lunch break!!! And then he saw me stammer so he tried to rephrase; he said "Whiskey?" and I decided I'd just answer truthfully, even though I had never had whiskey I understood what he was asking and I said, "Yes, yes I do." And I really wanted to ask "Why?" But before I could even decide if I was going to ask that he handed me a plastic bag with two canned wine coolers in them and said, "Gift! GIFT!" and I was just blown away. I quickly said, "Oh! ARIGATO GOZAIMASU!!" Which is "Thank you very much (not the Oh, that was just me saying "Oh"). And then he walked back into the store. He didn't work there, he didn't know me from before, he just gave me a gift and went on about his business.

I laughed all the way back to Amity and was amazed at what had just happened. I told my co-workers when I got back and even they were a little puzzled. One of them said, "Yes, we do give gifts in Japan...but we give gifts to people we KNOW." I said to her, "Yeah, that's what I figured, I couldn't believe a stranger gave me a gift let alone ALCOHOL!" Hilarity.

And finally, one more funny story from the ever so growing list. I have a class with High school students who are 15 and 16. One of our activities was to look at four different pictures. One had a lady who had a paint bucket on her head, one had a man who was scared, another had a little girl crying next to a bus stop, and another one had a man hanging from a window sill. The point of the activity was to get them to make up reasons for what was going on in the picture. Well...when we got to the man hanging from a window sill, I was not expecting to hear what they had to say. The entire class is girls save one boy. So there are 5 students total. I had given the other three pictures to three individual students and as to not leave anyone out I let these two girls Akiha and Kei (AH-KEE-HA and KAY) talk to each other and try to figure out why this man was hanging from this window sill. They spoke mostly in Japanese when explaining to each other and then tried to tell me in English. Well it was difficult for them so one girl, at the coaxing of her peers, drew a picture on the board of a man and woman in love, and then another girl OUTSIDE of the heart. If you are confused I will explain.

Basically they were trying to tell me that the husband was hanging out with his girlfriend (or doing other things with her...) and his wife walked in on them and so his wife pushed him out of the window and that's why he was hanging there. That made my day, I thought it was hilarious. Aren't my kids creative?

Ok, well that is all for now. I hope you all enjoyed these stories, post comments if you want!!

Like I told a friend of mine yesterday (JESSICA!!!), I feel like someone took all the essence of me, consideration, love, respect, joy, happiness, smiling, kindness, politeness...and made it into a country. Then Jessica told me, "Have fun in JERpan!" I love it!!

I'm loving JERpan!! hahaha!! yay! SAGOY (great).

-Jeremy aka Jerpan