Cool Beauty

You know summer has arrived in Japan when:

• people stop you to ask why you're wearing a shower-cap while further inspection reveals you've walked through another spider web
• your retinas develop callouses from all the bugs you meet
• you revert to ironing the back side of your shirts again
• your new vocabulary is exclusively about frogs
  
• pulling your pants down reveals an Amazon of evil in so many ways

I shall not elaborate on the last point.

Yes, 2007, the year we'd all been waiting for, is already halfway done. It seems like it was just yesterday that we had "stoves" in each classroom (kerosene heaters) , thus supplying us with our only recourse against winter's elements -- apart from cloaks made of pheasant hides caught during the fall hunt. Actually something should be said about these stoves, both a testament to Japanese adaptability and, yet, a screaming testament to the contrary. Somehow these industrial revolution hand-me-downs manage to coax fuel, electricity and fire to live together and, as the lone giver of heat (since most Japanese are actually dead), it serves as a kind of congregation area, an office water green tea cooler if you will. Sitting at my desk I could look straight at it at any time and see the principal standing there, solemnly toasting his ass, his face a staid bastion of concentration.

The principal plays an important role in any school, and in Japan the ascension to this seat is considered a bit of a coup for applicants- usually PICKMEPICKMEPICKME vice principal types. There is a test (there is ALWAYS a test) involved in selection, as well as the dreaded mile run. Principals must be fit for many duties at school, including (I am not making this up) weed wacking, having coffee brought to you, and smoking in your office as if your death depended on it. I am glad to say mine excels at all three.

Ever since we received new teachers at both schools, the format of planning for and teaching English classes has similarly changed, granting me an inadvisable amount of input. No longer does the old nod and grunt trick float me through planning sessions, as it had in the past.

Teacher: What should we do?
Nicky: furrows brow, bobs head
Teacher: Ok, so, after song, children will make human pyramids.
Nicky: mmmmmmmmmm.
Teacher: Do you understand?? After pyramid, you swallow hamster, OK?
Nicky: I see. nods
Teacher: Good, see you tomorrow.
Nicky: Hamster? I heard hamster. Wai--NOT AGAIN

Thus, when I was asked recently for a game idea I actually said something. "Let's play that one game, but add ROCK SCISSORS PAPER," I said, throwing my hands in the air as if I'd just created the universe and sought props.

For here in Japan, games whose outcomes are non-dependent on skill instantly inject fun into otherwise un-fun subjects. At a funeral and need to smile? Fuckin rock scissors paper someone, because there will be a taker. I have a 3rd grader who won't participate in English but if our eyes meet, he'll crack a small smile, shake his fist and suddenly I'm caught up in rock scissors paper WHILE TEACHING. But it is important to first consider and estimate your opponent before deploying your weapon, for you will discover the battle is won long before the count of 3. Then, which weapon shall it be?

Rock Rock, the very thing we build our homes on, the stuff of cosmos. Nothing is more reliable than a rock of 4 billion summers. It's raw inertia enables it to dispatch most enemies with a single, crushing blow but if there is anything the classics have taught us, even the mightiest bear fatal flaws. Be wary of Paper, whose flexible fibers will quickly cover and disable your rock.

Scissors Scissors: the most well rounded of the implements, yet also the sharpest. These no-nonsense steel blades fear only three things: God, Rock, and Superman. Strong enough to pierce through the armor of most enemies, Scissors usually does the trick, but watch out for Rock's tough outer layering and considerable weight.

Paper Paper, whose skin carries the word of many Gods, will fell your foes with a wrap-and-choke technique learned from the Burmese Python of lore. Almost as aged as Rock, Paper derives from the majestic sequoia, and as such it is vaulted into respectability. Be not fooled by the parchment's modest dimensions. As Rock will attest, you must move swiftly or Paper will have you. Heed the two pronged attack of Scissors, whose razor edges have never lost a match to Paper.

Finally, I got a haircut recently. My good natured, 50-year old female coworker walked in the staffroom, took a look at me, and delivered the best compliment I will ever receive on a haircut.

"Cool...beauty?"

That's right, bitches. Cool Beauty's creepin while you sleepin.

April Showers

Its ok. You can come out of the attic now.

As we all continue struggling to find meaning in the last bloodthirsty warning post, I've given myself enough material to segue into the present blog - DESPITE wasting all my time getting sucked into overhyped digg links (BEST JUPITER PICTCHUR YOUR EVER GONNA SEE!!!(link)) and sobbing silently into my hands at the stupidity of YouTube commenters.

So, it is and has been a month of profound change here in Japan. It is during this month that the Japanese enjoy a picnic of beer, washed down with beer, under the venerable sakura tree, whose evanescent blossoms symbolize everything from the swift passing of life to the swift passing of beer under trees.*

For teachers and other civil servants, April brings great relief or great anxiety, depending upon whether or not you have been selected to transfer. It is said that these transfers help prevent corruption and serve to make the most well trained employee, but in the case of teachers, whose social lives are already suffocated by work, such inarguable change is one reason for the tearful sayonara parties.

As a result, I'm now sitting next to a stinkin PEN HORDER at one school and a Voluntarily Bald at the other!! Neither needs further discussion, although we are curious about Voluntarily B. Furthermore, due to retirement, we received a new, rookie principal at my smaller, family-like school, and the transplant was not unlike a stepfather meeting his new kids for the first time.

I was asked to do a self-introduction when we met, and it was ok until I freaked and screamed "YOU'RE NOT MY FATHER!!!" My voice a blood-curdling 170 decibles, tears spraying from my eyes, I stormed away amid complete silence (they were probably impressed) to my happy spot in the music room, where I played tamborine until I couldn't play anymore.

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*there are still some petals hanging outside, so if you would like to join me in appreciating the bittersweet nature of life, aided with beer, please contact.

Stand Down

I have allowed you to ride my bus, both to and fro, but the time has come to set you straight, ass.

Our non verbal agreement stated that your territory was the rear of the bus and that NR7000's territory included the front, the women, shit, even the old ass bus driver.

U fucked up.

I noticed you creepin closer lately. It came to a head when one of mah old ladies gave you candy too. Unacceptable, dogg.

Come tomorrow you best be sittin atop tha engine in the back or you WILL get stuck with a pencil.

After that, you cold, knawmean.

NR7000 out

Baby, your scent is intoxicating.

I had not seen you since you ran out on me that day, December 9th.

I had to move on. I had to. I found another and I tried to hold her in my arms like I did you. Baby, I tried.

Her touch was different, cold. I always had to press the right button with her, you know? It wasn't right, baby girl, and I perspired every day just worrying about it.

Damn.

Then came Christmas, and there you were, like a ray of sunlight cutting through my dark and stormy cloud. I knew I had to have you and to hold you in my arms again.

Girl, I promise we will freak in the bathroom before I leave for work every day. Every single day.

I've missed you, Old Spice "Aqua Reef" Deoderant/Anti-Perspirant.

xoxo,
Nicky

The Bag King

Man is not the sum of what he has but the totality of
what he does not yet have, of what he might have.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Plastic bags are a fixture of daily life and rarely is a purchase complete where you would not receive one, such as a drink from the convenience store, screwdriver from home center, baby from black market etc etc.

Working my way up the bag hierarchy, I convinced myself that I could go no further. That I had reached the top. That I'd have to buy products so big they require special delivery, such as women*.

I was to learn that day last week what my sum was not; what my totality might be.

Check out that great big fucking bag, dude!!! Just iMAGine my excitement when the cashier scooped everything together and proceeded to place them in a bag that was no smaller than Shaquille O'Neal. "Its so big I could sit in it," I thought, giggling like Sloth, saliva bungee jumping off my face.

And once home, I promptly sat in the bag. You can do many things inside this bag: read a magazine, create a cocoon of immediate warmth, cry yourself to sleep. With carefully cut holes in the bottom, it could easily accommodate two during swim season at Suma Beach, although I am thinking of stuffing it and mounting it on the wall.

*i can't make this joke funny, i've tried