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Tuesday fun
The first and foremost thing I'm very worried about right now is internet.
I asked Sachi yesterday if I could have my landlord's phone number to tell KDDI so they could talk about installing internet. Sachi had no idea what I was talking about (and even after getting Eri to translate I don't think she understood), and she didn't know my landlord's information either, so finally I get her to call Head Office to find out for me... and apparently, Head Office didn't tell her the landlord's info either (or more likely, she didn't ask for it, she probably just said "My crazy American teacher wants permission to get internet at her apartment") and she just told me, "Head Office says you cannot have them drill holes into the walls of the building," and I said, "I don't think they necessarily HAVE to, I know that the person next door has Satellite cable, and they can even sometimes run these things through the airconditioning or other windows," and she gave me a big blank stare, like she didn't understand a word I said, so I tried explaining that they didn't need to drill holes and could she PLEASE just get me my landlord's information? She said she'd try to call back tomorrow. I asked how I could get internet and she said "Maybe you cannot," and internally I was just like "FUCK NO WAY DON'T TELL ME THIS SHIT" and externally I'm like "Uhh... I hope you can find out information for me later."
Apparently, the teacher before me, who also had this apartment, didn't have internet here OR a bicycle. What's even more mysterious to me is that she had a very serious boyfriend back in England (who was the reason she eventually ended up leaving Japan), and so HOW the hell did they stay in touch without internet? I can't imagine that she spent that much on cellphone time and/or internet cafes... or maybe they didn't talk that often? Either way, I'm hoping to get a bike soon and internet soon as well. I don't understand why EVERY OTHER GEOS TEACHER I KNOW lives in a Leopalace and has had internet from their second day in Japan, whereas I live in this retarded Century Palace place and I've had to smuggle wireless from the one open point I can find in my neighborhood half a mile away and use my cellphone to try to answer all of my email, and sneak onto the GEOS manager's computer and whatnot. If they can't help me get internet in this stupid place, I think I'm simply going to move. I bet I can find somewhere that's NOT A FUCKING MILE FROM THE STATION and ACTUALLY HAS INTERNET if I look around enough, maybe if I even contact Leopalace themselves. When Carlos talked about still playing WoW and chatting with his friends back home on AIM and Skype, I just got REALLY angry inside.
Maybe I should have just told the KDDI people that yes, it was fine, just please come over and install internet, and not tried to figure out what they were saying about owner's permission. Why the hell do I always get the worse side of things by actually following rules and laws?
BUT, something else I am EVEN MORE worried about is that I signed up for KDDI internet -- am I going to have to pay for it or for something even if they can't come install it? I know there's some law in Japan about being able to cancel contracts within 8 days, BUT it's been more than 8 days since I signed up for the stuff, so would it have started when I got service or when I signed up to get service? How much money will I owe them if fucking GEOS management says I can't actually have them install the service?
I am not happy about this situation, in case you can't guess. I cannot spend a year typing entries on my laptop at home and uploading them when I can sneak 10 minutes onto the computer at GEOS, and I'm not spending 10 bucks a day for 3 hours of time at an internet cafe. I want to be able to read people's web pages on a screen bigger than 1"x2", and see pictures and upload stories and use AIM and Skype. Yes, I know that ten years ago people would have thought I was crazy for expecting to use the internet like this, but you know what? Japanese people these days would practically DIE if they didn't have a cellphone, and ten years ago that wasn't the case either. Maybe I should tell Sachi to imagine what her life would be like without a cellphone, maybe it'll help her understand.
ANYWAY.
Other than that, yesterday also sucked for various other reasons, mostly involving classes. I had four classes, and 2 went extremely well, 1 went well until the last 10 minutes, and then the last one just went horrendously bad. And of course, that's the note I remember the entire day by. It wasn't even really due to the internet situation, although I'm sure it didn't help that it stressed me out a lot. I just sort of made an extremely bad judgment on pairing two students to work together and on the way an activity would go, and everything went downhill from there. On the other hand, TWO of my students actually sought me out just to chat in English about random stuff for 15-20 minutes, and that was good.
I didn't get out of the school until after 11pm again, due to ranting about classes with Eri, who also wasn't having a good day -- her left eye swelled up so she had an eyepatch on all day. I guess she's lucky enough that the speaking level of her students is low enough that they can't actually ask her what's wrong with her eye.
So, by the time I got back to Warabi station it was around 11:30; I went to this little Japanese-food-24-hour place by the west side of the station and I had katsudon. There was actually another Japanese guy there using chopsticks in his left hand (the first one I've seen since coming to Japan this time -- no, I'm not joking, though three or four of my students are also left-handed), so I wasn't feeling all that awkward until three Japanese salarymen, older guys, came in and sat down inbetween me and the other lefty. Dunno why they made me feel awkward exactly, but I finished my food pretty quickly and left (with a big nod and loud "GOCHISOUSAMADESHITA" to the cook).
I wanted to play PNM, so I went into the little arcade near there, and there were about 5 people in there... and I started playing, and after my second song, the arcade attendant (I swear I had no idea he was working there, he wasn't dressed all official or anything, though he had a nametag on -- this must be a sort of low-class arcade) comes up to me and says in Japanese, "we're closing soon -- this has to be your last game", and I said "Oh, I'm so sorry! I didn't see hours outside, what time do you close?" and he says, "Midnight. It's ok, just finish your game."
I get this feeling that most arcades near me close at midnight, pretty much.
Anyway, I played one game of PNM and left and came home and decided to sleep before writing this entry because I'd probably be pretty angry still if I was tired and grumpy about the internet situation.
Now, it is almost time for me to leave for work again. I'm hoping to duck out and watch Koshien's final game in the afternoon for about an hour -- I don't have any classes until 5pm, and it starts at 3pm. It's Hiroshima's Koryo highschool vs. Saga Kita! I'm rooting for Saga of course, but Koryo looked like a damn good team too, so who knows. Hopefully they'll let people watch at the Daiei again.
GUESS WHAT! KITAKO WON THE GAME 5-4!!!!
It was 2-0 for most of the game, I started watching in the 6th inning, Yusuke Nomura had a one-hitter going into the 8th, and then BLAM, Saga pitcher Kubo singled to lead off the inning, the bases got loaded, Nomura walked in a run (it was Kubo), and then Soejima (I think thats how you say his name) hit a grand slam home run. 5-4. Koryo almost had a guy on third in the top of the 9th but instead he got himself picked off in a sac bunt attempt trying to go to third. 2 outs and the last batter was nomura, the Koryo pitcher, and Kubo struck him out.
ADACHI MITSURU COULD NOT HAVE WRITTEN A BETTER STORY.
it was really cool, even though a lot of the 50-year-old guys in the store looked at me funny the whole time, like "why is this crazy gaijin here cheering for Saga?"
I asked Sachi yesterday if I could have my landlord's phone number to tell KDDI so they could talk about installing internet. Sachi had no idea what I was talking about (and even after getting Eri to translate I don't think she understood), and she didn't know my landlord's information either, so finally I get her to call Head Office to find out for me... and apparently, Head Office didn't tell her the landlord's info either (or more likely, she didn't ask for it, she probably just said "My crazy American teacher wants permission to get internet at her apartment") and she just told me, "Head Office says you cannot have them drill holes into the walls of the building," and I said, "I don't think they necessarily HAVE to, I know that the person next door has Satellite cable, and they can even sometimes run these things through the airconditioning or other windows," and she gave me a big blank stare, like she didn't understand a word I said, so I tried explaining that they didn't need to drill holes and could she PLEASE just get me my landlord's information? She said she'd try to call back tomorrow. I asked how I could get internet and she said "Maybe you cannot," and internally I was just like "FUCK NO WAY DON'T TELL ME THIS SHIT" and externally I'm like "Uhh... I hope you can find out information for me later."
Apparently, the teacher before me, who also had this apartment, didn't have internet here OR a bicycle. What's even more mysterious to me is that she had a very serious boyfriend back in England (who was the reason she eventually ended up leaving Japan), and so HOW the hell did they stay in touch without internet? I can't imagine that she spent that much on cellphone time and/or internet cafes... or maybe they didn't talk that often? Either way, I'm hoping to get a bike soon and internet soon as well. I don't understand why EVERY OTHER GEOS TEACHER I KNOW lives in a Leopalace and has had internet from their second day in Japan, whereas I live in this retarded Century Palace place and I've had to smuggle wireless from the one open point I can find in my neighborhood half a mile away and use my cellphone to try to answer all of my email, and sneak onto the GEOS manager's computer and whatnot. If they can't help me get internet in this stupid place, I think I'm simply going to move. I bet I can find somewhere that's NOT A FUCKING MILE FROM THE STATION and ACTUALLY HAS INTERNET if I look around enough, maybe if I even contact Leopalace themselves. When Carlos talked about still playing WoW and chatting with his friends back home on AIM and Skype, I just got REALLY angry inside.
Maybe I should have just told the KDDI people that yes, it was fine, just please come over and install internet, and not tried to figure out what they were saying about owner's permission. Why the hell do I always get the worse side of things by actually following rules and laws?
BUT, something else I am EVEN MORE worried about is that I signed up for KDDI internet -- am I going to have to pay for it or for something even if they can't come install it? I know there's some law in Japan about being able to cancel contracts within 8 days, BUT it's been more than 8 days since I signed up for the stuff, so would it have started when I got service or when I signed up to get service? How much money will I owe them if fucking GEOS management says I can't actually have them install the service?
I am not happy about this situation, in case you can't guess. I cannot spend a year typing entries on my laptop at home and uploading them when I can sneak 10 minutes onto the computer at GEOS, and I'm not spending 10 bucks a day for 3 hours of time at an internet cafe. I want to be able to read people's web pages on a screen bigger than 1"x2", and see pictures and upload stories and use AIM and Skype. Yes, I know that ten years ago people would have thought I was crazy for expecting to use the internet like this, but you know what? Japanese people these days would practically DIE if they didn't have a cellphone, and ten years ago that wasn't the case either. Maybe I should tell Sachi to imagine what her life would be like without a cellphone, maybe it'll help her understand.
ANYWAY.
Other than that, yesterday also sucked for various other reasons, mostly involving classes. I had four classes, and 2 went extremely well, 1 went well until the last 10 minutes, and then the last one just went horrendously bad. And of course, that's the note I remember the entire day by. It wasn't even really due to the internet situation, although I'm sure it didn't help that it stressed me out a lot. I just sort of made an extremely bad judgment on pairing two students to work together and on the way an activity would go, and everything went downhill from there. On the other hand, TWO of my students actually sought me out just to chat in English about random stuff for 15-20 minutes, and that was good.
I didn't get out of the school until after 11pm again, due to ranting about classes with Eri, who also wasn't having a good day -- her left eye swelled up so she had an eyepatch on all day. I guess she's lucky enough that the speaking level of her students is low enough that they can't actually ask her what's wrong with her eye.
So, by the time I got back to Warabi station it was around 11:30; I went to this little Japanese-food-24-hour place by the west side of the station and I had katsudon. There was actually another Japanese guy there using chopsticks in his left hand (the first one I've seen since coming to Japan this time -- no, I'm not joking, though three or four of my students are also left-handed), so I wasn't feeling all that awkward until three Japanese salarymen, older guys, came in and sat down inbetween me and the other lefty. Dunno why they made me feel awkward exactly, but I finished my food pretty quickly and left (with a big nod and loud "GOCHISOUSAMADESHITA" to the cook).
I wanted to play PNM, so I went into the little arcade near there, and there were about 5 people in there... and I started playing, and after my second song, the arcade attendant (I swear I had no idea he was working there, he wasn't dressed all official or anything, though he had a nametag on -- this must be a sort of low-class arcade) comes up to me and says in Japanese, "we're closing soon -- this has to be your last game", and I said "Oh, I'm so sorry! I didn't see hours outside, what time do you close?" and he says, "Midnight. It's ok, just finish your game."
I get this feeling that most arcades near me close at midnight, pretty much.
Anyway, I played one game of PNM and left and came home and decided to sleep before writing this entry because I'd probably be pretty angry still if I was tired and grumpy about the internet situation.
Now, it is almost time for me to leave for work again. I'm hoping to duck out and watch Koshien's final game in the afternoon for about an hour -- I don't have any classes until 5pm, and it starts at 3pm. It's Hiroshima's Koryo highschool vs. Saga Kita! I'm rooting for Saga of course, but Koryo looked like a damn good team too, so who knows. Hopefully they'll let people watch at the Daiei again.
GUESS WHAT! KITAKO WON THE GAME 5-4!!!!
It was 2-0 for most of the game, I started watching in the 6th inning, Yusuke Nomura had a one-hitter going into the 8th, and then BLAM, Saga pitcher Kubo singled to lead off the inning, the bases got loaded, Nomura walked in a run (it was Kubo), and then Soejima (I think thats how you say his name) hit a grand slam home run. 5-4. Koryo almost had a guy on third in the top of the 9th but instead he got himself picked off in a sac bunt attempt trying to go to third. 2 outs and the last batter was nomura, the Koryo pitcher, and Kubo struck him out.
ADACHI MITSURU COULD NOT HAVE WRITTEN A BETTER STORY.
it was really cool, even though a lot of the 50-year-old guys in the store looked at me funny the whole time, like "why is this crazy gaijin here cheering for Saga?"
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I didn't know you were left-handed either. I think something about the musical instruments you play made me think otherwise, although I suppose the only really strongly handed instruments are stringed...
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