some culture shock

I've been absent from my picture album and blogs lately, but I blame Culture Shock.

Culture Shock is the one-armed man. Culture Shock is the Oracle. Culture Shock is a great excuse. Following the highs associated with being a new JET in the first few months comes, according to a real graph, a swift decline in your ability not to kill things. It seems that the sports festival, which was held at the end of September, marked for all JETs the end of the honeymoon period full of red carpet and pig intestines and the beginning of just pig intestines.

The month of October has passed surprisingly quick, but without much of note. The children that appeared in my early pics have not morphed into other, cute children, and my surroundings have lost the luster of their summer color and everything else seems to converge on grey. It is fully dark by 5:30pm and shortly after that, the townsfolk recede into their anti-death chambers for the night, leaving barren roads to be kept company by the soft, flashing lights of hidden establishments.

Anyway. The past week has been one of strange ailments and stranger cures. I woke up consecutive mornings with my first taste of vertigo and other symptoms of an ear infection, so I took my temperature at school. My supervisor handed me the thermometer, I confidently plunked it under my tongue, and I assumed Temperature Reading Posture. Seconds later, I looked up, hearing him shout "No, no!"

He was pointing to his armpit.

And thus I visited the doctor. This was something I tried to avoid, because it is well known in JET circles that Japanese "doctors" are in fact hand-me-down robots from the universities, dressed in green. I was shown to the bathroom and given a paper cup. I was fairly certain what they wanted from me, but having made the fatal error of absolutely pissing to my heart's content 15 minutes before, I actually considered something far more repulsive.

Sadly, I didn't go that route and you'll just have to use your imagination because I aint sayin it. I eventually received my medicine and biked home, realizing soon thereafter that I couldn't read the labels. I had been prescribed FOUR different kinds of pills, for god knows what, and during interpretation my supervisor pointed to his wrists and stomach - areas that my meds would address. Thanks, J1000.

ALT Misses Bus, Boards Wrong One; Explanation Yields Mockery

Ono City- 24 year old Nicholas Roberts, first year ALT in Hyogo Prefecture (Japan), recently missed his bus to school and boarded an incorrect one in an attempt to rectify the situation, it was learned yesterday.

Following the advice of coworkers, Roberts modified his morning routine to include a breakfast of riceballs - to be eaten during his commute on the city bus.

"**** ***** riceball," he was quoted saying early Tuesday morning.

Due to a malfunction which Roberts blames on seaweed, rice spilled "all over the place" and time was lost. Enough time, in fact, that he abandoned protocol and attempted to board his bus at a different stop.

"This bus came when I thought my real bus would arrive," Roberts explained, "and they're the same color. So fuck yall."

Roberts said he knew something wasn't right when, after triumphantly stepping aboard said bus, he sat in his own seat amid a sea of sleeping businessmen; normally there were three women. Some time later, Roberts exited the bus and sheepishly boarded the regular chariot not far behind.

When explaining the story to a busmate who was absent the following morning, she voluntarily translated to the rest of the bus -- reportedly much to the chagrin of Roberts. Laughter erupted from the women followed by a decrescendo of psychobabble.