Every Day an Adventure

It's Hichori's birthday today! Yay!

The other night, I was riding home in the train, and we got past Nishi-Kawaguchi, and the announcer says, "Tsugi wa, Oji. Oji degozaimasu." Except the next stop was actually Warabi. I'm not actually sure most people noticed.

Oh my FUCKING god I just saw a TV commercial for Intel with Kimura Takuya, Nomura Katsuya, and Tanaka Masahiro. The first two are in the Miyagi dugout talking about the latter. That was BIZARRE. (And no, I don't mean the Giants player, I mean the SMAP guy.)

And, yeah, I got a new heater this morning! So far so good! It seems to be warming my room and it also seems to be quieter than the old one! Very exciting. I basically sat there on my laptop for an hour and a half while they were installing the new heater this morning. Funniest part was when they realized the cord wasn't long enough to reach where the plug in the wall is, so the two guys are deliberating between each other how to say "extension cord" in English to tell me. So the one guy is like "Long electric? Not long?" and I finally broke down and just said in Japanese, "英語が上手だなぁ!" (You're really good at English!) They laughed and said "これが届かないから," (This doesn't reach) and I said "ああ、そうか。。延長が要るんじゃないの？" (Oh, I see... we need an extension cord, don't we?) and from then on in they just talked to me in Japanese. I asked if the power outlet was dangerous and they said no, but we should get it replaced.

When my landlady came back upstairs she talked to them some more about how the stuff works (I told them I can't read the manual), and then the installation guys left, and then I showed her some of the other stuff that's wrong with the apartment -- the laundry pole outside, the fan that doesn't work in the bathroom, and the way a weird smell comes up from the sink sometimes when you run water. She says we should be able to get it all fixed eventually... maybe... "man, this is an old building!" she remarked.

You know, the only reason why I know the word for "extension cord" is because it's the same starting word as for "extra innings" in baseball.

Anyway, today wasn't too bad. I started off the afternoon with a ton of sushi at Heiroku, which is always a good start. It's neat that I'm there enough that I know all the specials going on, including that right now they have kanburi (a super-tasty kind of yellowtail that only gets caught in winter or something like that) instead of normal hamachi. I gotta admit, so far it's definitely my favorite of the seasonal fishes here -- I wasn't that big a fan of sanma, the fall season fish. The toro-katsuo they have now is also fantastic.

Best moment today: around 3:30pm I'm sitting at the office computer making up a sheet for one of my classes, and Hannah-the-Sub comes in for some reason, I forget, and we're talking, and the phone rings, and Eri's still in class, so I pick it up and answer my normal お電話ありがとうございます、英会話ジオス赤羽校、教師ディアナでございます in a slightly higher voice. It was the grandmother of one of my kid students, so I talk to her for a few minutes... in Japanese... and after I hang up, Hannah's like "Wow. You have TOTAL PHONE VOICE. Your Japanese is really good though!" I can't tell if she was impressed or scared. I told her I basically imitate Eri's phone mannerisms, even the part where I smile and nod while speaking.

Second best moment today: one of my Headways guys, who's an engineer for Softbank, said, "Did you hear about what happened with Jeremy Powell?" I'm like "Dude I heard but omfg I have no clue PLEASE explain it to me." The other guy's like "What the hell are you baseball geeks talking about now?" And then I made the first guy explain it all. The funny part is, it's my job to make the students talk as much as possible and for me to talk as little as possible -- but in reality, I actually can't read the Japanese articles on this well enough to figure out what the fuck is going on! So I *wanted* him to explain it to me in English! Orix signed Jeremy Powell a few weeks ago, or so we thought, but apparently something weird happened and Softbank signed him out from under them! TOO WEIRD! Anyway, I said "This is all YOUR fault!" to the Softbank guy and he was like "Yeah, it is. I will go fix it."

Oh, yeah, the Headways guys walked me to the station after class. That was nice of them, even though it is not particularly far. The one guy was trying to explain to me about 発泡酒, happoshu. "It's like beer... only it isn't beer, it's not beery enough? I mean it tastes like beer and it has same alcohol as beer, but the level of the, the nandake, the mugi..." ("Barley? Hops?" I suggested.) "...the hops is low. So it's cheaper because it isn't beer. It's non-beer beer." "Do you drink it a lot?" "Oh yah, all the time." "Does it taste good?" "Well... no..."

Wheee, more popping of music happened. I really wish I knew how to get better at these games, but I guess I'm doing what I can -- playing a few gmes a week and all.