i'm still trying to figure out how honest i can be in this journal...i mean, it's all well and good to report dutifully everyday that i ate out for lunch and had sushi i bought at the convinience store for dinner, but whatever would i write if i happened to get smashed one night or something like that. can i write it here without certain people i know and love finding out about it/giving me a talking to? i'm not saying that it would ever happen, but it sure would be nice to have that freedom, to write exactly what happens each day, as well as my analysis. i dunno. anyway, this was the week of the big prefectural orientation for all the new jets in the miyagi prefecture. but first, i'll start at the end, and then move on to bigger things...
today i finally biked into furukawa and back, and it is a bit of a workout, especially with the headwind i had on the way there. it took me about 20 minutes to actually figure out where exactly the train station *is* in furukawa, but once i managed to get my bearings, i stopped in at a western style sit-down restaurant for a nice meal. the outstanding part of the meal in my mind was the "drink bar", which allowed unlimited free refills of the sodas, coffee, tea, and frozen sodas (or frokes, as i like to call them) featured therein. in japan, this is pretty rare, and since they had melon fanta, i was a happy boy. :-) japan features several bizarre flavors of fanta, only a few of which are available in 1.5 liter containers at the convinience store. my faves are melon and apple. i still like hard cider better than apple fanta, though; apple fanta is too sweet to truly quench my thirst. after filling my stomach and bladder, i proceeded to kaiser, one of the cd/video/book/software joints in furukawa. i got my membership card there last friday, thanks to f-san. he showed me how to fill out the application form, so now i can rent vids there. the selection is large, but somewhat hit or miss. they have a bunch of american dramas and action/sci-fi movies, but a limited selection of comedies. for example, i was unable to find _fear of a black hat_, which i desparately want to see. but they have quite a few jim jarmusch films, including three copies of _dead man_. strange. i walked out with _tremors_ and _young frankenstein_ (both were in english with japanese subtitles). the latter is highly recommended. i originally saw it with my family on vacation in florida after my sophomore year in high school, i think, and i don't think i fully appreciated it then. gene wilder has this uncanny knack for acting just slightly off-kilter, and teri garr is hot with a capital h. the blind-man scene, as leonard maltin mentions, is absolutely hilarious, as well as the rendition of "putting on the ritz". after the video ended, there was, for some bizarre reason, a few trailers for other 20th century fox works, including the lamest, most disjointed trailer for _the empire strikes back_ i have ever seen. there was also a crappy trailer for _return of the jedi_ with one of the least dramatic narrations i've heard, but at least the trailer for _rotj_ featured dialogue from the actual movie. after that was a trailer for the first ewok movie. gag. _tremors_ is a solid flick through and through, good for killing an hour and a half, but it's not a work of art or anything. very enjoyable rental, though.
now to the orientation...it began tuesday, august 8th, and ended on friday. as it was held at the tomiya "govermmant center" (as the sign outside the center reads), there was little in the way of actual civilization within a 10 minute walk of the complex. this was by design, as the orientation last year, held in the heart of sendai, featured hi-jinks that the powers that be did not wish to be repeated. now, before i go any further, let me emphasize how cool the gaijin jet supervisors working at the kencho (prefectural office in sendai) are. they are very understanding, personable, and accessible. i really couldn't ask for nicer people to tell me to get my ass in line. they honestly make me feel like i've got friends a few rungs higher up the ladder. okay, first my complaints about the orientation. there was a curfew of 11 pm for the entire complex. you've got to realize, you have 60 or so gaijin together, most of whom haven't had much contact with other native english speakers for a week or two. there is naturally gonna be a lot of socializing and stuff of that nature going on, and a crap 11 pm curfew is gonna be pretty damn hard to enforce. even so, there really wasn't much in the way of rule violations going on, beyond loud chit-chat after hours in the lounges. so imagine my surprise when the speaker at the closing ceremony mentions that "unfortunately, there was some trouble during the orientation," which, unless i'm totally misunderstanding japanese understatement and non-confrontationalism, means "y'all ain't welcome here next year". dude, what*ever*. i did not see a single lounge room trashed, i did not see a single jet resist or give the rent-a-cops at the complex crap when they told us to get to bed, and i didn't see or hear about anything major going down during the orientation, especially compared to the stuff that apparently went on at orientations in years past. it really pisses me off when everyone i see makes an effort to behave, make a good cultural impression, etc., and the man throws a verbal sucker punch anyway. "cross-cultural understanding," my ass.
but i'm focusing on the negative. the orientation was quite a bit of fun, and a welcome respite from the crash course in japanese culture i've been receiving for the past couple of weeks. and i made several acquaintances that i look forward to cultivating into friendships in the next year or two. the prototypical jet is a lot more extroverted and people-oriented than i am, so i spent most of the free time with others listening to the banter/repartee being thrown back and forth. i played basketball wednesday and thursday, the latter day alone, and the former in a 2 on 2 match. there were these strange little weight machine benches that used pressure resistance. unfortunately, i couldn't figure out any way to use them to do biceps exercises. the prefectural's jamaican alt made the comment that he preferred free weights, a sentiment i heartily agree with. f-san is supposed to take me to the town gym one of these days to get my membership card there. i'm dying to get into a consistent weight training routine here, quite frankly. but i digress. the orientation consisted of seminars during the day, including 4 hours of japanese class wednesday and thursday. i was in the most advanced section, but i was probably the most rusty of all the jets in the class. it was really nice to review and see some kanji, but most of the grammatical points we went over i learned in my second year of japanese at tech. the teacher was pretty cool, though. (i would like to point out at this juncture how cool my japanese teachers at tech are. they were truly interesting people with an almost unlimited supply of patience who managed to keep a healthy sense of humor during the classes i attended. i never quite realized how much fun the intensive language course i took last summer was until this orientation.) the other seminars i attended varied in the amount of interesting material presented. for example, the team teaching session were quite enjoyable, but the safety lecture...*yawn*. so that's my half-assed summary of the week that was. i was glad to get home, to be honest, but mainly because i seriously missed e-mail. i'm just that dynamic. side of beef in me for a month, difficulty seeing over my pelvis, yadda yadda yadda.
been listening to: orbital, tom petty, tool, tourniquet, u2
"these city lights, they shine as silver and gold..."