first of all. the new radiohead album, _kid a_, is fucking amazing. go buy it. now.
as a warmup for my tale of the previous weekend, i'll describe random events that may or may not have happened this work week. today was a semi-holiday at the elementary school, so i mainly sat around making kanji flashcards and playing calculation, the solitaire flavor of the week to which i'm currently addicted. there were a couple of classes i went to, but my japanese sucks, so i only got the general gist of the first (various presentations about a local river, with lots of statistics. i fell asleep.), and almost none of the second. the lunch was very good, as is usually the case at the elementary school, and i was lucky enough to get "okawa" (japanese for seconds). after lunch, i was told i could leave, so i biked to furukawa to buy shink tickets for my trip to osaka this weekend. they ended up being under 40,000 yen ($400), which was less than i was expecting to pay, so that worked out well. pretty exciting.
wednesday, i helped out the senior english teacher with three first year classes. they were learning "how many", and i had written out several different questions using "how many", with accompanying answers (for example "how many dogs does bob have?" "bob has 3 dogs") on little slips of paper. i then gave each student one slip of paper, and they had to find the person who had the correct companion question or answer. they seemed to have a lot of fun (both classes that played the game wanted to play it again), which is one of the biggest thrills i've gotten in my rather short teaching career. i'm starting to see how alts here feed off the energy of the first year students (who compared to the sedate, reserved older students, are absolutely fearless in trying out new english words and phrases). that night, i went to the eikaiwa (english conversation club), which was actually a lot of fun. we discussed, among other things, the phrase "when it rains, it pours" (i resisted the temptation to interject the title of the tmbg song "when it rains, it snows"), drugs, and music. i got home and trimmed my beard. pretty exciting.
tuesday i worked out. school was boring.
monday i rode the town office for the first time in a while, where my supervisor helped me apply for world cup tickets. it would so rock if i score some...i'm hoping the world cup takes sleepy miyagi-ken by surprise so that i can get some good seats. >:-) after a random ceremony, and various other goings on at the town office, my bike and i were taken to the kindergarten, where i was suddenly the coolest kid in class. the class i was in had a fox for a teacher, so i felt a lot like billy madison. after clowning around with the kids on the playground, playing dodgeball, etc, i rode home, where i finally finished the civil war trilogy i had been reading for the last few months. all in all, it was a good day.
sunday i was awakened early in kevin's (see succeeding paragraph) house by a shrill noise that was being transmitted via megaphone through the entire neighborhood, along with various japanese messages. before i managed to fall asleep again, i found myself wishing for a sniper rifle...waking up at half past 12 (a good seven and a half hour sleep, i think), kevin kindly drove me to the subway station, and, listening to opeth's _morningrise_ most of the way, i arrived at the furukawa station around 4, where i realized that i had left my beloved colorado avalanche sweater back at kevin's place. he's a hockey fan, though, so i'm sure he'll keep it in good shape before returning it. anyway, low on cash and, lacking a single whit of common sense, i decided to walk back to sanbongi instead of taking the bus. i'm not saying that it wasn't a scenic or interesting journey, but i sure paid for it the next day. i think the total distance was around 10 or 12 km. guh.
okay. saturday. i woke up around 6:00 or so, showered, and headed to tagajo for flag football with a bunch of other alts. i arrived about an hour and a half ahead of everyone else at the station, so i mainly sat and read until 10:20, when a few other showed up, including the affable organizer of the whole affair, nick. he gave me and a couple of other guys a ride to the park, where we set up to play. the first game i did quite well, catching several passes and scoring a couple of touchdowns. i think it was maybe six on six the first game? after, a bunch of other people showed up, so the field of play was enlarged, and we went at it again. i caught another touchdown pass in the early going, but mainly played decoy/defensive line. i heard the line "you're pretty fast for a big guy" a few times. i guess it was meant as a complement, but it reminded me of john travolta's line in _get shorty_ after throwing a bulky stuntman (played by james gandolfini, before he started playing tony soprano) down a set of stairs: "that's not bad for a guy his size." at the end of the second game, i was pretty bushed, but an hour break, a couple of sandwiches, and a 2 liter bottle of water brought me back from the dead. the third game was a lot like the second trip through vegas in _fear and loathing in las vegas_. there was no fourth game. i went to the domicile of kevin, an alt in the tagajo area, and sat around resting and watching some of _american pie_ before the group i was with packed into a car and drove to sendai for the after football party. the beer at the party really helped with the soreness i was feeling, and i had a few good conversations with various people. after the party, i wanted to stay with the group as they went to a club, so i spend 20 minutes walking through the rain looking for the car in which i had stupidly stowed away my backpack. failing to find it, i went back and waited under an overhang waiting for the owner of the car to find it and drive up. having accomplished that, i headed to the club where the after-party party was commenced. cover was 1500 yen, including two drinks. in desparate need of money, i managed to sell off my drink tickets, and waited for my ride home. words cannot describe the club scene with various rambunctious, drunk gaijin, but, although i'm sure the experience was enlightening, i'll endeavor not to repeat it in the near future. at one point i was asked by a random gaijin stranger "why aren't you trying to get laid?" as much as i usually enjoy explaining my religious convictions to a drunken idiot, i managed to refrain and mutter something about the place not being my scene. another person, upon learning that another person sitting at my table was an assistant english teacher for japanese students, exclaimed loudly "why won't they learn?" and upon learning that i myself, sitting about four feet apart from my fellow alt, was also an assistant english teacher, he exclaimed again "why won't they learn?" most of the time i love it when people impugn my professional competency, but this particular time i was strangely unamused and overcome with the desire to punch the cheeky bastard in the face. geez, there's a lot of hostility in this entry. well, long story short, i avoided starting any fights, took a taxi to kevin's place with kevin and his friend, ate takoyaki, and slept (not necessarily in that order). so that's the week that was. pretty exciting.
been listening to: radiohead, opeth, and damien jurado