big snake

I am thinking of riding my bike across Shikoku, catching the ferry to Oita and continuing down to Miyazaki. I have enough time as we aren't leaving for Tanegashima until August 12th and I have no work from the last week in July. I think my bike can do it, even though it isn't a proper road bike. I think I can make it. I have been doing small test runs over the last few days. Today I tried the cycling road that runs from Kyoto to Nara, I was trying to find were it deviates and you can continue south to Osaka. It isn't a very well marked trail. About 9km south of the cityI was stuck on top of the levy, looking down through the underbrush at the cycling path, which had reemerged from somewhere. I was contemplating picking up my bike and running down through the bushes, like I had run up earlier, when a giant, fuck-off snake went across the path right in front of me. It had to be about 6 feet long so it probably wasn't a mamushi. I am pretty sure it was a Japanese ratsnake. I am not particularly frightened of snakes but I had that weird moment where you can't figure out what you are looking at.

I grew disenchanted with the bike path and rode north to Arashiyama. I really can't understand it, the Katsura river, along which I had been riding, is just as beautiful south of the city as it is to the north, but the corresponding neighborhoods are only nice near Arashiyama. There is all of this ridiculously gorgeous real estate that is consigned to nasty factories and ramshackle, tin houses waiting for condemnation. As much as I hate American development, I would like to see someone raise the neighborhoods to the level they should be. Those around Arashiyama are beautiful. Everyone deserves to live in a nice looking neighborhood.

tatsuya and kazue

i went to visit tatsuya and kazue on sunday. sometime this week they will have a baby.

Here is my letter in response

Yukari-san,

I was glad to receive to your letter of June 6^th. You see, I too am a fan of the written word. The letter, sealed in an envelope and splotched onto paper, is truly a lost art-form. I can remember as a child, and later as an eager teenager, memorizing the postal schedule and running expectantly to the box every afternoon in the hoops of a stray missive or a well-timed communiqué. Once it was a square-shaped floppy record from National Geographic entitled, “Songs of the Humpback Whales.” For some reason the idea of whales singing terrified me and I hid behind our mailbox refusing to reenter the house.

It was well thought out on your part to coordinate the placement of said letter so that I would find it while checking my box on the way out the door, rather than first thing in the morning. While I appreciate the effort it is truly a misunderstanding of the situation. If I were to be a prisoner of circumstance and foul mood, a slave to my own uncontrollable temperament, I would be your faithful compatriot and have no problem cheering you on. Unfortunately, when it comes to the workplace, I value things like stability and professionalism, so your exertion, while appreciated, was somewhat wasted on me.

I would also like to express my gratitude to whoever you retained to proofread the letter in question. I am assuming that that is what happened. I picture your beleaguered husband, laboring late into the night humoring your desire to craft a letter, filled with vague animus to an employee whom he has never met. Please give him my thanks. If my vision is off-track, and you did the work on your own, you must have really buckled down. The English was both focused and understandable. This certainly isn’t the Yukari I know, who will declare to a roomful of children, “I can see your unvisible cake.” It is interesting how mistakes in a foreign language can be charming in the right hands. Unfortunately the hands in discussion here are misshapen and palsied, metaphorically of course. The letter certainly wasn’t written by the Yukari who commanded me to teach ‘locations.’ When I asked, “What do you mean by ‘locations’? Do you mean ‘the bank’, or ‘Hokkaido’?” “No, no,” You replied. “Like ‘on’ or ‘under.’ “Oh! You mean prepositions.” I declared. You couldn’t pronounce the word, but you picked up on the general point-God forbid I invoke subordinating conjunctions- “Yes, like ‘next to’ and ‘between.’ When I laid out a model city and had the children discuss what was next to the bakery and what was across from the school and asked the kids to write down what their house was next to and across from, you charged into my classroom-who knows where from, but then again, you are always peering into the windows like a seaman’s widow who refuses to give up hope-shouting angrily, your face crinkled in the constant nonsensical panic that is your specialty, and declared, “Wesley, we do not teach our children ‘across from’ we teach them ‘next to” and between.’ I told you that in the office earlier.” I realize my mistake; I had taught the kids that there were options, that there was something across the street. Your lack of faith in a child’s ability to learn is truly inspiring. As much of a disappointment as I have been, I hope that you will always remember me fondly when considering the entire adposition family.

You may not be aware of the fact that I spent last year studying the LSAT exam for entry to law school. I did fairly well; well enough to get into a top tier school with a little begging and a second tier school with slight effort. Unfortunately I decided I would rather live by my own rules than enforce someone else’s. Looking back I find that living by my own rules involves eating peanut butter out of the jar for dinner and owning things that I find sitting behind apartment buildings. Considering all of that, the vaguely legal, yet non-binding tone of your missive was not lost on me. I appreciate the style. It is an interesting challenge. For example:

- On June 5^th, 2007 The employee in question witnessed the owner of the school strike a child in her care no less than three times.

- On May 16^th,2007 The employee witnessed the owner of the school become frustrated with a child who wouldn’t open his lunch box. She raised her voice to him, turned him over in her lap and struck him several times to his back.

- On numerous occasions, the owner of the school has forgone traditional first-aid measures for practices resembling faith-healing.

Anyway, as an exercise, it is amusing.

Speaking of legal matters; the only one that I think abstractedly exists between us, is the question of my apartment. A brief history: I found my apartment. I made all of the arrangements for it. I paid for everything concerning it. At the last minute, days before I was to move in fact, you called me and said that it must be put in your name. I relented. That was stupid on my part. I still assumed you to be reasonable and, therefore, capable of giving a reasoned opinion. You signed your name on the contract, yet paid no money pertaining to the apartment. (Of course-at your insistence- you have paid some of my rent, but have deducted it from my salary-so only in the most cursory of interpretations could this be considered you paying.) I posses the receipt and the paperwork for my down payments on the apartment. If you wish to be the actual owner of the apartment, I have no problem with you refunding me this money and taking control. If you would rather not, then I think we will have to come to another understanding. I will look into alternative remedies. I don’t mean that to sound threatening, I wish for the matter to work out to neither of our detriment.

I also realize that I owe you 7-man yen. I fully intend to pay that back on the schedule we discussed earlier. It was truly kind of you to offer the money, but I must remind you that I never asked for it. As I have told you before, I respect how you conduct yourself financially; you have been up-front and clear, as well as generous. I think you could be very effective as an administrator or in the accounting field.

I find it hard to express how disheartening it is that you find me a disappointment as a teacher. At first I thought you might be joking, or possibly trying a new motivational technique gleaned from a small book, with a shiny cover that you picked up somewhere. One Saturday, you emerged from nowhere to sit in on my ALC class which you had commanded me to teach how to make and read charts and graphs. Although I had carefully prepared several charts with easy to understand information for the children to convert into graphs, you had decided to bring your own worksheet. It read something like this:

Many childrens attended a picnic this weekend with their parents. The childrens were many years old. Two were five years old. Three were four years old. Four were three years old. One were two years old. Two were one year old. Four were no years old.

When the children(s) had difficulty understanding how to make a graph from this information, you threw the worksheet down on the table, stood up and, bending over at the waist hissed, “I guess YOU should have explained it to them better.” And stormed out of the room. “Okay," I said in explanation, "kids, let me try to break this down for you; Yukari is insane.”

As to your allegations of my selfishness, I understand where you are coming from. You own your own school, and are the sole operator. As such, you make all of the decisions regarding hiring, firing, budgets, curricula, and any other matter that might arise. If anyone, especially someone who you have hired as a professional educator, professes a difference of opinion with you and tries to discuss it in an adult manner, they are selfish. I don’t begrudge you that position. I try to live my life by ideals of honesty and integrity. I fail many times along the way, no doubt. But the undertaking requires a strong sense of self, a sense that can be easily confused with being selfish. It can also be very annoying, but I find it better than resorting to manipulating people in opposition to each other and timing your gossip and criticism for the maximum results of confusion and disunity. It is also easier, in the long run, than lying. Then again, I don’t own my own school so my theories are essentially worthless. In fact, the largest thing I own is a refrigerator, which I found in the garbage.

Even the worst educators are blessed with great kids. I am not sure if that is a blessing or a curse. As much as I feel your talents lie in other areas, you are lucky to operate a school with so many great children. I truly love all of them, and will miss them terribly. I imagine that their foundations outside of the school, and their own innate senses of decency are strong enough to propel them to greater things in spite of the questionable environment that they may be exposed too. I realize that you are not one given to self-questioning, but I hope that you will ask some of the other staff if they find me to be selfish. While I don’t wish to involve them in this, I am sure if Richard or Mellani were asked-without the threat of losing their jobs-they would tell you that I am surely not. If Makikio, or Miki or Hiromi or Megumi were asked-again, in an honest environment- I am sure they would give you an answer contrary to your conceptions. Most importantly, If you asked any of my students I think that you would hear that I was always giving of my time and my patience and my energy. I really believe that, even if they don’t remember me in a month or two, they will grow up to be great people.

I realize the uncomfortable dilemma I have presented you with; although you own and operate an English school, and see fit to criticize all of the native speakers who work there, you probably won’t be able to understand this letter. You will sit with it and debate its meaning. Was it a threat of legal action? Was it a warning that I was planning to tell the parents of your miraculous talent to heal? I think, in the end, pride will keep you from asking for help on this one, but you will sit there and agonize over it. Agonize the way I did that even though I could have explained a reduplitive copula, or revealed that a podium is something you stand on while a lectern is something you stand behind, sometimes I forgot to sing, “Big D little d ddd” and was therefore a severe let down as an educator.

I fully intended to work at your school for a year, possibly longer. After initial disappointment at your conduct towards me, I truly felt that, if I spoke to you as a professional, we could come to an understanding. You have made it clear that you are under no obligation to regard me as a professional, and that your small, noble pre-school exceeds both the Saito Board of Education, The Appalachian Institute for Creative Learning and the Miyazaki National Medical University in its rigorous standards. It is not for me to burst your splendid bubble. I think that a powerful sense of belief, running counter to all actual evidence, is a fine fight to pick with reality. It is just not my fight, so I thought to bow out gracefully now.

Here is the full letter

I thought it was kind of boring.

ke menito

photo by: peter reed miller/ SI

Michael Wang! Michael Wang! I'm looking for you Michael Wang!! I been tryin', but it's hard to get to 'Natti on my jetski. I'm comin' anyway Michael Wang! Be ready son.

The Money Quote

"The actual people who live in Japan are not unlike the general run of English people; that is to say, they are extremely commonplace, and have nothing curious or extraordinary about them."

(Wilde, Oscar, "The Decay of Lying, An Observation", 1899)

A Luchadore for Everyone

There is a really great photo gallery of Mexican luchadores up right now over at CNNSI. I recommend taking a look while it is still there. I would have to say that my favorite is Maximo.

I just got back from a long walk around my neighborhood. I walked north up Shirakawa to Heian-jingu. Kyoto might be the most beautiful city on the face of the earth. I was in Osaka today. I returned to the Asian Trade Center to sign the contract for my new job. Two great coincidences have emerged. I will be teaching at three junior high schools in Osaka City. One of the schools is in Mikuni, which is one train stop away from my friend's new restaurant in Shonai.
Coincidence two: I usually list my favortie Japanese memory as the time in college that I entered the Danjiri Matsuri in Ikuno-ku. I wil now be teaching there. I am so stoked about this it is hard to explain. Ikuno-ku is well known for the predominance of Zainichi Koreans. I am really looking forward to working there.

Since I have quit/been fired I haven't stopped to think how fortunate I am to live where I do and do the work that I am able to. I have been stuck in this horrible school surrounded by such pointless negativity that I have locked myself in my room with Winning Eleven and Ritz crackers and tried to fight off the nervous shivers. Fuck that shit. I have two days left and I am sure that it will be a roller coaster ride, but I can take it. I quit, in part, because the abuse is unbearable. But now that I have stated that out loud and am leaving, the abuse is just absurd.

The Asian Trade Center is growing on me. If it could integrate in some larger way with its surroundings it could be far more interesting. Of course I think that about everywhere. It would all be great if it were connected with wilderness corridors and backed up by national health care. Don't you think a lot of people would live part of the times in the woods, or traveling without steady employment if they had complete health-care coverage? Don't you think that would make for a better country? Maybe it is just me.

I am not naive enough to think that bad things won't arise with my new job. For starters, it is glorified scab work and I object to the basic ideas behind the position. It is union breaking. Bu it will be the first time in a while that I won't be the prisoner of a small school owners whims. I really dislike that position. While it can come with great freedom and the feeling of playing for a team if everything is going right, it can also be like visiting your friend's house when you are a kid, you never know what the crazy rules are going to be and what crazy mood you might have walked in on. I had more to write about being an immigrant, and the dynamic between Eikaiwa and proper teachers but I am worn out and have to go face the beast tomorrow. I think I will just try and act like an adult.

the unhappy shooting star

scan0004, originally uploaded by wwc photos.

self explanatory.

super magic giraffe fight

scan0003, originally uploaded by wwc photos.

Here is my drawing of a flying giraffe that fights, and is super and magic.

sakura at night

sakura at night, originally uploaded by wwc photos.

I would rather not have so many images on this blog, but in the midst of my retirement I feel a need to present physical evidence.

When the kids come in in the morning, I try to draw with them. Here is my drawing of sakura.

letter from milano

letter from mirano, originally uploaded by wwc photos.

Here is a letter from my buddy Milano. She is five and does ballet. She is very cute and screamed, "Wesley!" at me from the other side of the train station. Her English is excellent and she sees me as no problem to my co-workers.

letter from yukari

letter from yukari, originally uploaded by wwc photos.

this is the letter firing me a day after I quit. It is very cold and polite and informs me that I should move out of my house and that I am a great inconvenience to my fellow workers.

this is my neighborhood

DSCF3167, originally uploaded by wwc photos.

which is why my boss kicking me out of my apartment is not something i want to happen.....we'll see....oh yeah, i got fired today. which is funny, because i quit yesterday. i guess it is like showing up late for an orgy, you gotta jump on and act like you are trying.

I quit my job today.

Sí se puede

Steve Gilliard

Steve Gilliard died today. He was 41. I don't remember when or how I happened upon his blog. It quickly turned into something I made sure to read everyday. You can see it down there on the left on my list of links. Although their writing wasn't superficially connected, he filled a hole that was left by Ralph Wiley's sudden death. Gilly was right on on military history and how it applied to our current situation. He used Google Earth maps to show how talk about pulling out of Iraq was just talk until little things like bridges and two-lane roads were considered. He was thorough in his coverage of anything New York, evidenced in his moment by moment break-down of the undercover police shootings of a few months ago. He cared about how food was cooked and how the political process worked. One day, a few months ago, he felt sick and went to the hospital. He never got better. In the meantime his blog was nice enough to cross-post some of my stuff. I assume he never got to read it. He was also an advocate for U.S. soccer and hated the Yankees. That is about all it takes in my book, but he was so much more. It is really sad. It is doubly sad that in the most powerful country in the history of the world, it sounds like he wasn't getting the greatest medical care possible, but that is just speculation. I have been waiting for months for his opinions and voice to come back on the scene, but he's gone. If you have never checked out his stuff, I would recommend going back and reading it.

Fuck the fucking Yankees.

Hakuho

Hakuho finally lived up to his promise and was promoted from Ozeki to Yokozuna this week. I have had the pleasure of watching him fight live once a year for his entire career. The guy is rad. He isn't a pimp like Asashoryu, but he can beat Asa, which is amazing in its own right. It is nice to have two Yokozunas again, and, even though they aren't Hawaiian, it is good to watch the gaijin fuckin' shit up.

options

Edgar Frog: I think I should warn you all, when a vampire bites it, it's never a pretty sight. No two bloodsuckers go the same way. Some yell and scream, some go quietly, some explode, some implode, but all will try to take you with them.


I think I have found another job. It is working as an ALT at several junior high schools in Osaka. I would get paid a little more and get all national holidays as well as the entire months of August and March off. Now, I get no holidays off. I really hate my job and if this were 2-3 weeks ago I would just walk out the door. However, my bat-shit crazy boss has been super nice lately and has been telling me how good my classes are. I don't believe her but I am stupid in my loyalties sometimes. I know I should quit. My contract says that I have to give 2 months notice, but I have the feeling that that is not exactly legal. I also think that my recent suspicions that my boss is Sokka Gakkai , or something similar, and attempts faith healing on children-even during my class today. She really freaks me out. She also has the lease to my house. Whatever, she can take it and pay for it for two years. But, she spent my first month being a hateful tyrant and now is kind of doting on me. Isn't that just another side to the manipulation? What should I do? Leave and tell her she had it coming? I am pretty sure I will be 900 times happier working as an ALT, where you are actually treated like an educator and not a salesman. Uhhhh.

there is power in a union

Join the union! I wish I had known about this earlier. I think I will need their services shortly.

prolonged concrete strangeness

Work concerns drove me to the job interview on my day off. Keihan to Osaka presents the David Cross New York dilemma without the crazy guy part. every five minutes you are convinced that you have just seen the most beautiful girl in the world (present company excluded). Interview at asian trade center. Weird trip that place. Reminds me of why I can't live in Ft. Walton. It is a big, empty building full of stuff. Anything involving soul was sucked up a stairwell and sunk in the bay as landfill. There is a camping goods store. Well stocked. In a convention center down at the harbor. Nothing makes sense. Four floors of the building are taken up with a more than posh, outside anyone I know's price range interior goods store. It is like a giant airport with no planes. One of the prime, waterfront stores is occupied entirely by those gumball machine-like machines that dispense toys. Two South Americans are sitting on a bench with massive mullets. I wonder if theirs differ from that of the Anglo-Saxon variety. There is a t-shirt store named "dire need" which somehow sums up both everything that is wrong with this conference center and with capitalism at the same time.
Like most of these multi-million dollar projects (Kyoto-eki for example) there are a few good elements mixed with so much that is bad. Really this could apply to so much involving these huge amounts of money: movies, presidential campaigns...There is no way to keep them focused. These massive concrete ambitions with little beige, push-button phones set on cheap tables in the stairwells. There is a very nice concrete staircase/bleachers set-up overlooking the harbor and a large sailing ship. It the area is shaded by trees and populated by birds. everything we build should be like this area. If the trees could provide nuts or fruits it would be even better. Across the parking lot, longshoremen are offloading a ship. It is all a massive parking lot. I thought that if they could make that area like this and give everyone insurance and nice housing, I would be a longshoreman. I don't care. So much would change if so much would change. In any case I think they should take these massive, moneyed programs and divide them up to smaller concerns who could do these things so much better. Like a dirty little market with a stage in the middle. It could be so much more compact. I think William Gibson's vision of the bridge in Virtual Light is about as close to by urban ideas as anyone has gotten. Except that I think things could be nice and organic at the same time. These places still have lonely little corners with bad glass and vending machines. Why don't the ferries stop here? If you want to get the ferry to Miyazaki you have to take the train to a bus to a terminal with no stores and no food and grime and dirt and everything built on a scale for trucks. Why does business reject life? I have fully converted to the Windsor knot. I must recommend it. While I can never quite remember how to tie it on my own, it staid perfect all day and was never uncomfortable. I might have gotten the job. Quitting will be messy, like a vampire in The Lost Boys. I bought a hammock at the camping store on the way out and walked through all the train stations with it in my hand. People looked at me funny, but they always do. I went to Shonai to check out Dai-san and Ayako's coffee place. I was the only customer if that counts for anything. I want the new job. Quitting is going to be a scene. Going out of town with Koji for the weekend, which is good timing as it will be nice to be around actual friends/human beings for a change. Forgive my disappearance.