I just wanted to reflect on what a waste of a day today was.

Well, first it must be noted that I went drinking with my neighbors last night. We hit up the yakitori joint and that was a lot of fun.

Slept in, and it was pouring when I woke up. I was feeling sluggish anyway from last night's festivities so I went back to sleep. Woke up for real, went through my morning routine and it was actually lunchtime. So I went and had lunch downtown. I had a real nice bowl of tonkotsu ramen. This one shop had the best condiments: a pepper mill, sesame seed mill, and garlic cloves & press. I had extra pepper and sesame, extra extra garlic on mine and it rocked.

After lunch I went to work. Didn't do any actual work though, I just tidied up a bit, watched some videos and listened to some music. Took a walk, dropped in on some teachers, took a nap, listened to some more music and went home.

For dinner I was feeling lazy so I just went to the 7-11 and got a spaghetti bento. It was quite good actually, grilled chicken with tomato & garlic sauce. (What is with all the garlic today anyway? lol.) Watched some volleyball on tv. Japan was playing Brazil in the women's Grand Cup Championship or something. Good game, Brazil was just too much though. I seem to recall this being the case during the volleyball Grand Prix a few months ago. At least this one didn't have that lame NYC Boys theme song. Anyway, then after the game I watched Biohazard (aka Resident Evil in the USA) on one of the movie channels. It was a lot better than I thought it would be. Milla Jovovich rocks. After the movie, an infomercial for The Snuggie came on. Sadly it was merely the American infomercial dubbed over in English. I'd really like to see what a Snuggie commercial from a Japanese ad firm would look like. I bet it would be awesome.

Then I watched some basketball. They were showing a classic basketball game, Bulls vs Suns in the 1993 NBA Finals, game 3. It went into triple OT. I remembered this game yet I was watching it intently as if I were watching it for the first time, great game.

So yeah, basically did a whole lot of nothing today. Oh well. Good thing is that there's just 2 more days and it's the weekend again. I'd like to do something different this weekend, hmmm...

I was totally fine this morning, now I have a cold, wtf?!

It just came on as I was watching tv this evening. First my nose started running, then my chest got all congested and now I have a sore throat to boot. Great.

I have some TheraFlu, but I'd really like a bottle of NyQuil. I don't even remember what any of the cold remedies are in Japan. They've been having more and more commercials for those items on tv lately, so I guess I'd just better keep a memo pad handy.

In other news, I got a used car mag just to see what's out there. I think I'm going to go with a hatchback or a wagon. As much as I thought I wouldn't drive much and therefore a minivan would be a pretty good choice too, I went downtown by bus today. Round-trip bus fare cost almost 700 yen. Now I remember why I haven't been going downtown much to hang out. While once I get a car I don't imagine going downtown much due to the lack of parking, all the shopping malls around here have free/discounted parking (w/purchase). I could totally see myself doing that on weekends/after work to get stuff for the apartment, do some grocery shopping, buy some clothes, etc... I'm looking at taking the plunge with my Jan. paycheck.

I had a few other things I wanted to put up but I'm not feeling up to it atm. Hopefully tomorrow.

I went to The Renaissance Sports Club & Spa after work today near Shizuoka station to see what's up. (Specific branch info here.)

It costs the same as the place I went to in Saitama. They have fewer classes but lots more cardio machines. There's also a tennis school but it costs extra. By extra, I mean it costs the same as the gym membership itself. So if I were to join the gym and add the tennis school the total would be about 200 bucks a month. However, the costs don't end there. This gym is quite far from my apartment. What I would do is, after work, take the train to Shizuoka station, work out, then take the bus back to my apartment. That commute (uni-gym-apt) costs about 500 yen. So that x 5 days x 4 weeks = another 100 bucks per month. So all in all, about 300 bucks a month. Damn. Or I could skip the tennis school and just do the gym - which plus commute totals 200 bucks a month. Still a heap of money, but cutting back on the alcohol would pretty much cover most of it (sad but true). Hmmm....

Tomorrow I'm going to check the gym that's closer to my place. It's actually not what I'd consider "close" but at least it's reasonably accessible by bike. I don't know what the facilities are like, but I imagine the price (for just a gym) will be about the same, 100 bucks a month. Probably no fancy pants tennis school but I can do without. I just need to get some exercise. What really bugs me about this place is the actual commute itself, the roads to get there are rather treacherous for bicycles. It is a somewhat harrowing experience. If I go work out, I want to relieve stress not build it up!

Dang, is that the time? Time to go to bed!

My last class just now, aka "the robots". The material this week was a little better, but with the crap weather (cold and rainy) I feared the worst. They somehow pleasantly surprised me by being quite upbeat and talkative (in English no less, lol) today.

But still, I feel myself getting into a rut again. I need to snap out of it. I know what I can do, I'm just so f-ing lazy.

For example, my typical day at work has loads of free time. I spend most of that time just playing on the internet. I do make some decent lesson plans, but if I would just put in just a little more time and effort I could come up with some great ones. Also, I could be studying Japanese. While it's something that I don't really want to do, it is something that I need to do (at least if I want to improve my odds of getting a better job here in Japan).

Then once I get home I have two other things that I could should be doing: practicing the sax and exercising. I've been ok about the sax, putting together a decent practice here and there. I just need to be more consistent and also play some new stuff. I've been trying to get my chops back playing stuff that I had played in university. I should get some new pieces just to mix things up a bit. They don't need to be harder, just different. Heck, maybe they need to be easier because I'm not as good as I used to be, and it has been frustrating making mistakes with that stuff when I knew it inside/out back in the day.

Exercising I've been REALLY slack on. Last year when I was really into the gym, I noticed a big difference both physically and mentally. I need to get back into that bigtime. I don't feel a need to relieve stress at all - for real, this job is the most laid-back thing ever AND compare that to the elementary school where ms. you-know-who was on my case all the time. However, I AM out of shape. My clothes don't fit as well as they used to. I think I will stop by the gym after work tomorrow (it's raining today, and the gym is a bit far) and see what the membership plans are like. Actually, there's a big gym close to Shizuoka station. I was planning on heading downtown for a bit anyway. I think I'll stop by that one before I head on home.

And my trip (did I mention I was taking a little trip?) was a bust this past weekend, but I'm actually in a pretty good mood.

To recap:
Friday - classes were better than expected. (The text was an especially boring unit imo, but the kids had a lot of fun with it, go figure.) After work, I went with a colleague for a quick round of drinks and a bite to eat at an izakaya. Then I went downtown and picked up a new blazer and pair or pants. Finally went to the foreigner bar for a couple more drinks, chatted up the waitresses for a bit and then went home.

Saturday - I was supposed to go to Osaka/Kyoto to meet a Japanese friend who has just returned to Japan after living in the USA for a while. However, she e-mailed to say that she felt sick, possibly the flu, and couldn't make it. It was raining all day here as well so I just stayed in and watched some videos. Among them, I watched The Godfather again. Pretty good flick, but I don't know if it is the #2 movie of all time (according to the IMDB).

Sunday - Did some laundry, oh and Tootsie was on one of the HD movie channels so I watched it. Great performances from Hoffman and Murray. That movie is A LOT better than I remembered. Then again, the last time I saw it, I was in junior high school and it was the edited-for-TV version. Still didn't quite dig the ending though. Anyway, then CV came over and we hung out for a bit. We had dinner at an izakaya downtown and then went to a party. It was pretty cool but with work the next day, didn't really want to get too crazy.

So now I'm in the office about to go look over my stuff for today. But first...

Riding the bus in the rain today, I thought about the car once again. Today the commute wasn't too bad. However, doing that during the rainy season was not my idea of fun. I'm planning on being at this university for another 2 years. After that, I dunno. If I can find some sort of tenured instructor position somewhere, I might consider staying in Japan. Otherwise I'm probably going to head home and try to find work at a community college/Intensive English Program, that is, if the economy isn't still in the gutter. Anyway, back to the car. If I'm here for 2 more years, I would get enough use out of a car to make it a worthwhile purchase. Nothing fancy, just a cheap used car that's easy on the gas. Then my other friend was like "You should get a wagon or even a mini-van. That way, if you stay in Japan but move somewhere else, you can use it to haul some of your junk over there." Interesting idea, I think I'll check into it.

Alright, enough procrastinating time to do a little work.

Got up early, dragged my feet through my morning routine. Remembered that my class today isn't until this afternoon, went even slower. Eventually showed up for work. Met some other teachers in the lab, shot the breeze with them for a bit. Went up with them to another lab to check out some new computer software. On the way there, I found 2 USB keyboards in the rubbish bin, one with a built-in USB hub. I took them as I would like to use one with my PS3. I'm using the one with the built-in HUB right now. It was a bit of a pain to get it to work with this computer. It is a Japanese keyboard and Windows kept thinking it was an English keyboard. I did all the IME stuff and still nothing (for example, on a Japanese keyboard, the @ is the key next to the P where on an English keyboard it's [shift]+2). I had to install a driver, now it's ok. Well not 100% ok, the built-in hub is a bit wonky - maybe that's why it was in the rubbish bin. At least the keyboard layout is reading correctly now. It is also more comfortable than the one that came with this PC. So yeah, doing all that did give me a bit of a headache. I downed a couple Tylenol and had a cup of coffee.

This past weekend was pretty crazy. Went out drinking with a co-worker Friday night. We hit it pretty hard. In addition to the beers, we also split a bottle of shochu between us. Still, we managed to make it downtown and met up with CV and her friend. We went to the wine bar for a little taste then went to a foreigner bar. The foreigner bar was quite dead though. That was pretty disappointing. To top it all off, I got really sleepy. After a couple hours of that, we left.

Saturday I woke up late, did housework all day and then there was a little get together for CV. Her birthday is today actually. Oh I also bought her a little cashmere sweater-dress at the GAP for her birthday. We had a little karaoke party. That was fun. I killed my voice though.

Sunday was spent recuperating from Friday and Saturday.

In other news, my last few sax practices have been decent. I am not quite satisfied with the sound of the set-up on this horn though. It just sounds so... generic. I definitely need to get some new mouthpieces, at least 2: one for classical and one for jazz. My fingers are still out of sync too, I just feel so clumsy. Despite my gripes, I am having a lot of fun with it though. I need to get into an ensemble. Maybe the university's wind orchestra wouldn't mind if I sat in with them from time to time. I'd also like to get some people together to play in a quartet. Speaking of sax, I thought more about bringing my baritone saxophone from home - while it needs an overhaul, it is a Yamaha and what better place to get it overhauled than right here in Yamaha-land?

Oh and speaking of bringing stuff over, I also looked into bringing over my car. I wasn't too concerned with the whole driver's side being reversed thing, I've seen a number of cars with the same layout here. However, it's SO expensive. Nevermind. It would basically cost more than the car is actually worth. I do want to get a car though. I was just thinking about how cool it would be to go fishing! The beach really isn't that far away. It's just a pain in the ass to bring even a tiny amount of gear on a bicycle. So yeah, I'm also leaning towards just paying half of my loans off during winter break and getting a head start on the car.

There is a yakitori joint down the block from my apartment. It's a hole in the wall with ambiance. Good eats, good drinks, owner knows my name - nice place.

Just finished up a long weekend. It was rather mundane for the most part. A few interesting tidbits stood out though.

Friday night I went with a friend to a wine bar in downtown Shizuoka. Pretty cool little joint. While it wasn't really a dress-up place, I did feel a little out of place in my shorts, t-shirt and sandals. I definitely want to check out that place again, maybe even become a regular.

Saturday I did domestic things all day - laundry, house cleaning, watched some videos (I liked Terminator 4 btw, I don't know what the bad reviews are all about). Then went out with a friend for yakitori at that place near my apartment.

Sunday for whatever reason I started to feel a little glum. Couldn't figure it out. Nice weather, no problems that I can think of, just felt rather blah. I didn't even make it out to my friend's birthday party that night. I guess it would have been good just to get out and try to snap out of it. I just couldn't be bothered though.

Yesterday I went to a jazz festival with CV at the Shimizu S-Pulse Dream Plaza. That was pretty cool. Great weather, good music, I even had me a few imported beers and some boiled peanuts. I hate to nitpick btw, but the jazz vocalists - great voices but their pronunciation was SO bad. ("When I FERU in RABU UIZU you..." ugh.) I talked with a few of the musicians here and there. One of the jazz saxophonists teaches at a high school in my neighborhood! She actually goes to the yakitori joint near my place occasionally. We talked shop for a bit and she was like "We should have a jam session sometime!" I was like "Yeah! Sounds good!" on the outside but I was really thinking "Let me get in a few months' worth of practice and I'll think about it" - lol.

But yeah, the jazz festival got me really pumped up about playing jazz again. I actually can't wait for work to be over today so I can go home and practice. (note to self: in my free time today I should probably download and print out some stuff to practice.) Oh and one of the big bands there didn't have a baritone saxophone. I don't know if they don't have anyone at all to play the part, or that person was just absent at this performance. I mean heck, if they don't have one I can bring my bari back with me over the break and jump right in. They were an amateur group, about as good as my high school jazz band - heck they played one of the charts (almost as good as ^_^) we did! Now that I think about it, I didn't see ANY baritone saxophones at this thing! Most of the groups were small combos, the saxes they did have were alto & tenor. Thing is, my bari needs an overhaul and it would be a tremendous pain in the ass to get it from Orlando to Shizuoka. Well, maybe I just need to get it from Orlando to Narita then I can kuroneko it to my place in Shizuoka. Hmmm...

Well one of my classes this morning just got canceled. For the semester. Sweet. One less thing to plan for. I do need to use the time constructively though. The typhoon got me out of work mode and as such I didn't plan a few classes. I guess I'd better go do that now.

Got some classes then long weekend. I totally forgot this was a long weekend too. My weekend plans look like this:

Saturday - gotta do laundry, it had been raining for about a week straight until the typhoon passed through. I need to buy groceries. Also gotta clean up the apartment. I'd gotten a bit slack on the housekeeping since classes started back up again.

Sunday - a friend is having a birthday party Sunday night. Until then I don't have much to do. I'd like to go somewhere and take advantage of the nice weather.

Monday - day off, I suppose recuperating from the party will be in order but I don't anticipate drinking much/at all at the party - did I mention I was getting a bit tired of alcohol and wanted to cut back?

Heck, maybe I'll visit some used car lots and see what's going on. I haven't done much in the way of exercise at all lately. I need to hop on the bike and ride around. I've been taking the bus to work due to the bad weather. I need to start biking to work again.

I just realized that the longer I wait, the possibility increases of the technology items I want to buy with my funding getting cheaper/having better specs. I don't need anything right now. Perhaps I'll just wait until towards the end of the funding period and then buy. Too bad the funding doesn't carry over - I could buy a really sweet set of toys with that much to play around with. Oh well. (ETA: I just did some price checking... I actually can buy both a NetBook and external BluRay drive with my funding IF I pay for the JALT Conference registration out of pocket. Hmmm....)

Dang, I need to prep my classes for today. Not that I should be complaining though, after I knock these out I'm free for the long weekend!

Well, I just heard the warning on the city's loudspeaker system to take care due to the excessive wind and rain. It's really coming down out there too. Listen to that rain and wind howl, dang. Still no word on whether classes at the university have been canceled or not. Hmmm.... Morning classes have been canceled. Looks like afternoon classes are still on, grr...

In other news, I made a reservation for a flight home for the winter break. Including all the taxes and fees, for the days I requested it's gonna be about $1500, ouch. Still, I should have enough saved up by then to pay off my student loans once and for all. Afterward I'll be poor but that monkey will finally be off my back. I think I'm going to skip the moped and just save up for a car when I get back from the break. (or I can just pay off half of my student loans and get a head start on saving up for the car, hmmm....)

I was also thinking about my career and stuff. I have 2 more years at this university. After that I'm going to need a more permanent position where the salary and benefits continue to grow the longer I work. I'm not asking for a professorship, but a tenured instructor position at least. If the opportunity to do that is not present here, I'm going to have to go elsewhere. It might be time by then to find a job in the states somewhere, either an adult ESL gig at a community college or intensive English program for international students at a university. If this university does offer me a tenured instructor position, I daresay I might just become a lifer. I really like living and working here. Once I get a car, I'll almost be settled down. If I somehow manage to get married, this apartment is big enough for a family.

ETA: The typhoon has passed. There's but a light breeze and no rain. Thank goodness they already made the class cancellation announcement. If they waited until now, morning classes would still be on. *whew!*

Turns out I don't have quite enough for the BluRay burner + NetBook after all. That and I need to use some of my funding to pay for registration at the JALT conference in November. So I figure I'll just buy one item with my funding and get the other item out of pocket. It will be a sort of belated birthday present for myself.

Classes are going well. Today I had a class that I've nicknamed "the robots", but they were actually quite lively. Last week's classes while not exactly the best ever were pretty good considering the 2-month break. They all basically just wanted to catch up with each other and talk about what they did over the summer break - which I incorporated into the lesson, they just had to talk about it in English.

( Oh and finally, some pics from Silver Week 2009. )

The driving test went exactly as before, this time I was extra careful to veer to the side of the lane that I was making a turn on and to drive "less confidently" somehow.

At the end of the test, the examiner told me that my braking and accelerating was too abrupt. This is apparently is what the "driving too confidently" comment was all about. Then the guy started making small talk. He was like "Oh, you're from America. What do you think about Japanese roads compared to American roads?" He asked me stuff like this for about 5 minutes - all in Japanese. Then he asked "Can you speak English?"
I was like "Yes, of course I can."
Then he said in (heavily accented) English "You drive very well!"
That concluded my driving test.

There were a few other foreigners also taking the test. From last time, the Chinese guy (who I thought was Korean), this was now his 4th time taking the test, and the Filipino lady were there, this was her 3rd. There was a new Filipino lady taking it as well.

So after everyone was done, the examiner talked to us all as a group saying "I recommend that you go to a driving school to practice driving more and get some advice from the instructors there about your weak points. Please think carefully about how Japanese roads are different from the roads in your home countries. Driving is taken very seriously here in Japan. Almost all Japanese take a full course at a driving school that costs about 300,000 yen before they can get their license.... Etc." Not exactly the most promising message. I mean heck, with that it didn't seem like any of us passed.

We waited an hour for the results.

The staff lady came to the window and was like "There was one person who passed. Congratulations.... kevinsensei!"

I felt like I won the lottery. It was all I could do to walk up to the window calmly and get my paperwork for the next step. I felt really bad for the Chinese dude. He was not pleased at all.

The rest of the license making process took about 30 minutes. I got my license and then took the bus home. On the bus, I took a nap and dreamed of buying a moped and a car. (^_^)

So I'm here in my office cleaning out all the crap from last semester. Damn, that's a lot of crap. I don't want to toss it just yet, because some students may want to see why they got the grade they got. Maybe not though, as I was pretty lenient in my grading.

I saw CC today and told her how I failed my driving test. She wasn't surprised. It's pretty much a given that everyone that doesn't take the government approved (expensive) driving course fails the driving test. She laughed at the reasons I was given though. She said they were just looking for an excuse to fail me. *sigh*

Anyway, I think I'm going to go have some lunch. I would go home, but after lunch I think I'm going to try to work on a transcription for violin and tenor saxophone. I just installed Finale 2009 and downloaded a couple of Bach 2-Part Inventions. I can keep the right hand as is, I just need to transpose the left hand. Yes, this is for CV and I to play someday. While I am no longer interested in her romantically, it would be nice to get together and play sometime. Making these Finale docs is so tedious though. What would be really great if there were a library of downloadable Finale files out there somewhere. (Just googled it. Oh shit, there IS one, sweet. I'm definitely going to play around with that after lunch.)

FAIL!

Now, I'd heard that these Japanese Driver's License tests were bullshit. I didn't want to pass judgment until I had an experience of my own. Here's what happened.

I was scheduled to be there at 9:30 am but got there around 9 just in case. I had some time to kill so I walked through the course. There were a couple parts I wasn't 100% sure about, but was cool with pretty much everything else.

I turned in all my paperwork at 9:30 am and waited about an hour. Then I had my oral interview. This was conducted in Japanese. I suppose I could have opted for the English version, but I was able to keep up with everything she was asking. After that, I waited for another hour then took the paper test (in English). I missed 2 questions out of 10. 1 was due to me not reading the question carefully enough. The other was due to the question being poorly worded. But whatever, I was just glad to have that over and done with.

Then there was a lunch break. There isn't a food place nearby. I took about a 20 minute walk to a Mos Burger and had lunch there. I took the bus back to the drivers license center and there was still about 2 hours of waiting time (they gave us another hour to walk the course, and then an hour of waiting time). I had my iPod Shuffle and was able to listen to some music. I should have brought my Touch to watch videos instead.

Finally the driving test. There were 6 foreigners getting their licenses converted. Myself, a Filipino guy, a Chinese guy, a Brazilian guy, a Filipino girl, and a Chinese (or Korean) girl. They split us up into 2 groups, I was with the Filipino and Chinese Guys. In my group I was the last to go. The Chinese guy went first, and the Filipino guy went along as a passenger. When he was done, the Filipino guy took his test and I went along as a passenger. Then I took my test and the Chinese guy was my passenger.

The course itself was no big deal. It was remembering all the little nit-picky points, like how far in advance to put up your signal, how many times to check your mirrors, etc... that made it nerve racking. To start off with, you enter the car, adjust your seat & mirrors. Then you put on your seat belt and check that your passengers have their belts on. Finally you start up the car. Turn the ignition, foot brake, put the car in gear, release the hand brake.

Getting onto the course. Before we actually got on the course, we took a practice lap around the perimeter. To pull out of the parking spot, I checked my mirrors, blind spot and then put on my turn signal. NO! I turned on the windshield wipers! Dammit! I turned them off, put on my signal for real, and took a lap around the course.

Taking the test - first up, accelerate to 50 km/hr. No big deal. Slow down through a curve and stop at a pedestrian crosswalk. Mirror check and turn right. Go through a couple more turns and then navigate the "S Curve". If your tires go off the road here, it's an automatic fail. It's a pretty narrow S Curve, but fairly simple if taken slow enough. After that, go to a stop sign, mirror check and turn left. Follow the curve around, and turn right. Enter "The Crank". It's a couple of L-shaped turns tightly put together lined with poles. If the car hits any of the poles or goes off the path, it's an automatic fail. Before I got on the course, I was pretty worried about this. However, when I got in the car I had nothing to worry about. My car back home is a Jeep Grand Cherokee, the car for the test today was some Mazda econo-box. There was so much room to maneuver, I breezed right through that too. After that there were just a few more lane changes and stop signs - remember those signals and mirror checks! Return the car to the starting point, put the car in park, engage the hand brake, turn off the engine, release the foot brake. The dude told me what I did wrong, I agreed with him on everything, took off my seat belt, unlocked the car, checked both ways and exited the car - only then was the test over.

Afterward, it hit me. I was so nervous, I realized I haven't been that worked up in years. I know I wasn't nearly as nervous for my FIRST driver's license test - the final exam for driver's ed. back in high school! That adrenaline was really kicking my ass, I became so restless. I wanted to just go somewhere and burn it off. However, we had to wait for our results. That took another hour.

Finally the results came in. The Filipino and Brazilian guys passed. Everyone else failed. Of the other test takers that I talked to, this was the Chinese guy's 3rd time taking it and the second time for both the Filipino and Chinese ladies. (I didn't get to ask the dudes that passed what time it was for them. They got their "passed" paperwork and quickly bolted to the next phase of the license acquisition process.) The staff then told us one-by-one what we messed up on and let us schedule a retake. The earliest available time slot is Tuesday September 29. *sigh*

Here's what I did "wrong".

1.) When making turns, I kept my car in the center of my lane when in fact I should have veered to the side of the lane that I'm making the turn on. If I'm turning left, the car should be on the left side of my lane so that cars can pass around me on the right. Vice-versa, if I'm turning right, the car should be on the right side of the lane so that cars can pass around me on the left. AFAIK, this is not an actual rule but a mere courtesy. In fact, in the "Rules of the Road" book it states not to be too close to the left when making a left turn so as not to inconvenience bicyclists.

2.) The staff lady also said that I "was driving too @%#$^%#" Huh? She pulled out a Japanese/English dictionary. She then said I "was driving too confidently." WTF, how exactly do I drive less confidently?!?

I could understand if I failed due to driving on the wrong side of the road, a rolling stop, messing up on the S-Curve/Crank. But for these reasons?!?

So yeah, there's 2400 yen and an entire day down the drain. To top it all off, I now have a really bad headache as well. I get to go back for more of this on the 29th, yay. If I fail that one, I'm undecided if I want to fork over yet another day and 2400 yen to these f-ers. Also, the next term will have started up so I think I may be a bit too busy for these sorts of wacky hi-jinks.

After my meeting, I went to the police station downtown to sign up to take the driver's license tests. I got there and they went over my forms, thoroughly. They wanted to make absolute sure that I had had my license in the USA for 3 months prior to arriving in Japan. Which was a mess because I've been back and forth so many times for both living and vacation. They had a hard time trying to figure out which stamps on my passport were which. THEN there was one form I forgot. I needed to have my Alien Registration Card Certificate. What the heck? I may have gotten one when I applied for my Alien Registration Card back up in Saitama. Where that paper is, I had no idea whatsoever. But the police were cool about it. They were like "You can go across the street to City Hall and they can make a new one for you. (Basically it's a paper confirming the authenticity of my Alien Registration Card, like I could forge my card. Hell, it would be easier to forge the Certificate versus the card itself, lol.) So I ran over there quickly, got the Certificate made up and then returned to the police office - which had a big "CLOSED" sign over the Driver's License area. (O_O) However, the police lady who was working on my paperwork waved me over and we continued filling out the paperwork. So that was nice!

My test date is next Tuesday, September 8th. Heck, maybe I should have scheduled another one while I was there, lol.

Anyway, on the way home, I stopped by a CD shop. I've recently started listening to the Japanese artist: Superfly. She has a great voice, and one of her songs is a theme song for the morning news. Anyway, her new CD finally came out and she's going on tour, with one stop in Shizuoka! I might have to look into that.

After the CD shop, I got a sandwich for dinner at Subway and then saw an acquaintance's crazy bike outside the Starbuck's so I decided to see if I could say hi. So yeah, he was there having a chat with a very interesting girl (who I later found out was his daughter!), she plays violin in the Shizuoka Symphony. Shot the breeze with them for a bit then had to head home to eat my sandwiches.

Now watching Leon - the International (extended) version again.... What a great film!

So I went ahead and did the easy part of getting my American license converted today - I got an official translation. I also picked up the little "rules of the road" book to study. Next I have to go to the police station and make an appointment for the various tests. Apparently there's an interview (and eye & hearing check?), written test and driving test. I have to go to the police department to make an appointment for those. I can't go tomorrow morning as I have a meeting in the afternoon and I don't know how long it'll take to do all that. If the meeting ends early enough I'll go straight from there. If not, I also have another meeting on Wed (a long one for sure ;_;), so I'd have to go on Thursday.

Still, it did feel good to take the first step towards getting this done. I'm just worried about that damn driving test. The horror stories are out there. People I know personally have told me of their own experience and verify that it's not just some sort of urban legend. This site has a few whoppers on there as well:
http://www.supermelf.com/japan/ajetdrivingbook/index.htm

So yeah, I'm not really looking forward to having to deal with that. Seriously, "plan on failing"? There's something wrong with a system where people have to make those sorts of contingency plans - taking into account that this may all be part of an elaborate plot to limit the number of cars on the road in Japan and/or generate some revenue. Oh, Japan. *sigh*

I haven't even taken the damn thing yet and I'm starting to ask myself why am I even bothering, lol.

Similarly, there's also the JLPT in December, lol. I know it's being held on Sunday December 6th. I don't know when the apps are due, sometime real soon I think though. Just browsing the Level 2 kanji.... damn. I mean hell, I'm not exactly 100% on the Level 3 kanji anymore. At least they give it twice a year now. Should I just wait until next summer? fu*k.



On a lighter note, I've been playing a lot of みんなのGolf 5 (wikipedia site). This is a fun and somewhat addictive game! The way they hook you is that you have to play to unlock the stronger/more interesting characters. There's even an on-line mode where you can play a round of golf with people from all around the world Japan. Of course, to beat them you need the better characters, so you play offline and try to unlock them to go back online and play some more. Very tricksy indeed. Heck, I might as well go play a couple rounds now before I go to bed, lol.

Oh yeah, I forgot about this one... a few weeks (months?) ago, I toyed with the idea of getting a Japanese Driver's License. The process to change over an American license is a pain in the ass, but it can be done. However, the more I thought about the red tape and expenses involved with actually buying and keeping a car here in Japan the less keen I became on the idea.

Then this weekend, I met one of the coolest girls ever. She's really into motorcycles. She's from Tokyo and rode down to Shizuoka to come hang out with us at the Abekawa Fireworks Festival. She has a Kawasaki, I don't know the model, but it is a cruising type, has a 650 cc engine - and she looks like a total bad ass on it. So then I thought, dang a motorcycle would be pretty f-ing cool. So today I started looking at motorcycle school options. It's pretty intimidating. *sigh* They're all damn expensive. Moreover, my Japanese is crap and since I know nothing about motorcycles, I'd really need to understand everything they say. There are schools that give instruction in English, but none around here - I'd have to go to Tokyo or Osaka. And of course, these schools are even more expensive than the Japanese ones.

I can't get over how expensive these courses are. Hell, it would be cheaper for me to FLY home to Florida and take a motorcycle course there instead! (Of course, Japan has already thought of that and one of the caveats of the foreign-to-Japanese license conversion process is that you must have had your license for at least 3 months in that country before entering Japan.)

So I don't know. The motorcycle would be mostly for recreational purposes. A car would be more practical.

hmmmm....

I think that if I decide to do anything, I will convert my American driver's license, jump through those hoops and then eventually get a car. Do I really want a car in Japan though? Well, if nothing else the license would be good to have "just in case". Yeah, I should just convert my license and worry about the car issue later.

Oh, and in other news there was the Abekawa Fireworks Festival on Saturday night. That was fun. Then some of us went swimming in the Okitsu River, up in the hills which was a lot of fun too. I'm feeling a little lazy so here's a link to my Picasa album. (oh and there are lots of pics of the motorcycle chick - there are more pics of her than anyone else in this album, lol.)

2009-08-30

(Yes, it's been a while since I've had to do one of these.)

You may be thinking, "What the hell would he have to rant about in Shangri-la?"

The English department is wanting to to an overhaul of the curriculum. They say it's broken and needs to be fixed. In my opinion, while there are things that could be improved, some of the changes they're suggesting are not going to improve things. In fact they may make things worse. As the junior instructor (in both time served and age, the second factor carrying a lot of weight in Japan) however, basically what I say don't mean sh*t. Admittedly, I've only been here for 4 months. I still don't know all of the ins and outs of this system. So yeah, they can come up with a plan and I can follow it. Maybe that's just what I need to do. After all, the last time I voiced my opinion at my job about English education wasn't exactly a success. *sigh*

In other news, I saw G.I. Joe last night. That was a fun movie! It went a little heavy on the flashbacks and explosions, but was generally quite entertaining. Oh and The Baroness and Scarlett - wow. (^_^) I'm glad at least someone was able to make a good movie based on toys from my childhood. (the Transformers movies are a mess, sadly. ;_;)

Oh and I've been watching the Women's World Vollyball Grand Prix. Japan did surprisingly well in the previous round. I was really surprised to see that they had beaten Germany and Russia, as those teams are significantly taller. They were able to win with their technique and teamwork. This round however, they lost to both teams. It seems like the previous round was just a warm-up and now they brought their "A" games. I was happy to see that Japan beat Holland decisively last night. That means that even though they have the same record as Germany in this round (1-2), they're ahead due to the points ratio. Tonight's match is against China and tomorrow night's is against Brazil. China is winless, but not a team to be taken lightly. Brazil, well... they're like the Juggernaut of women's volleyball this year. "Don't you know who I AM? I'm the Juggernaut bitch!"

Dinner tonight with CC (the Cute Counselor). I'm pretty excited, nervous even. I haven't felt like this about meeting someone for dinner for a long time. Oh, and I found out why she never speaks Japanese to me. Yesterday at the university thing, I paid her department a visit. In her department are some nurses, older ladies, who I've met before for basic things like having my blood pressure checked. They don't speak any English so we always have our chats in Japanese. So when I saw them, they started up with one of our chats, and CC was like "What? You speak Japanese? All this time, I've never heard you speak Japanese!" It's true, whenever she sees me I'm usually talking with other English teachers or my students, always in English. Back to the nervousness, I find that I'm worried about what I should wear and where we should go, what should we do after dinner, etc.... I'll just play it by ear like I usually do, but I surprised myself that I was thinking so much about it.

With the latest revelation that the university weight room is practically deserted for the summer, I've decided that a routine is in order.

Wake up
Light breakfast
Bike to university
Study Japanese
Have lunch
Do research
Work out
Bike home
Shower
Play saxophone
Have dinner
Watch videos
Sleep

Notice that I didn't put any times. This all really just depends on what time I get up in the morning, lol. I think this will be my M-F routine for the rest of the summer. I can start this today actually, replacing "Do research" with "Attend meeting". I didn't study Japanese, but it's almost lunchtime.

ETA: Another reason to come to the university M-F, the really cute counselor next door saw I was in and stopped by. She remarked how it was strange for instructors to come in during the break. She then asked if it was ok for her to stop by and chat with me whenever I'm in. Ummm... Yeah!
Man, that totally made my day. (^_^)