2001-11-15 - 18:03

This cafe rocks. I have a computer at home but yet I still come to this place to write email and cruise around my little cyber haunts anyway.

(They've always got great 1950s tunes playing - this one sounds like Bjork singing with a Mamas and the Papas -esque tamborine in the background. The chorus is "I can never go home anymore."... OH WAIT! Now California Dreamin' is playing. curiouser and curiouser)

The water woman came today. It's so convenient that all these people visit me to collect my bills. The other day the gas people came by to visit as well. In Canada, an unpaid bill merits a letter from a collection agent, in Japan, they just come to your house.

(This is the only place outside of Montreal and France that serves coke with a lemon.)

The students have been rad lately. I actually like talking to them more and more, and find them to be interesting people more and more. Even the students that fall asleep in class. In fact, I don't care if they fall asleep in class as long as they make an attempt to talk with me outside of class. Yamamoto-kun was making fun of me today because I have licorice tea that looks like magic shiitake. He's really cool actually. Not much English speaking ability, falls asleep in class all the time, but he wants to engage. Most students do. Except for the stupid girls who can't seem to hold a conversation about anything without giggling past three letters or covering their mouths with Japanesse feminine flair. Horiuchi-kun also doesn't understand much. Yesterday we finished a game on expressions like "I have a sore throat", etc and he showed me his work: a textbook full of little eyebrow hairs that he pulled out during class. He looked up and me and said, "ah-eeeeeeee-bu-ra-o". Yes, Horiuchi-kun, eyebrow. I don't know what to make of him except for a riot.

Japanese ESL textbooks are fascninating. I pulled out these quotes today, so judge fer yerselves. This one appeared with a photo of a man standing beside the Japanese parliament: "Is this young man challenging world politics?" Um, okay, this confuses my understanding of Japan to a degree that is utterly senseless. Japan has an almost undetectable level of political action. There are SUVs everywhere, but they all have long, stilted quotes on the spare tyre cover espousing a love of nature, animals and everything green and organic.

Get this one: "We must eat much less meat and much more vegetables in order to allow our earth to survive." WHA! No way in Canada would we be learning this in school let alone second language classes.

Let's enjoy being confused together.