ye olde culture shocke
I feel like a Japan-medium cardigan wrapped around America-medium (e.g. Japan-large) undershirts and limbs.
Incidentally this is what I've been wearing for the past two weeks, plus/minus pants
Notes
cardigan = OUTSIDE JAPANESE FORCES
under-layers = INNER AMERICAN STIRRINS
pants = HALF-JAPANESE LIMINAL EXISTINS
But... are there any fixins?
Monday evening at school, while drawing pictures on prints for class, I was suddenly crying at my desk. Supreme homesickness set in without warning, tipped off by a neighboring math teacher giving the standard workplace goodbye to everyone else but me. I realized that I was being too sensitive (that ol' jawn) and reading too much into everything, but was headed down a slippery slope of wishing I were somewhere I could speak freely, act freely, hug people who understood, or at least eat pizza for cheap.
After eventually wiping off and clocking out, heading home, my knees met with an asshole-front-bumper that kept rolling through the crosswalk and refused to stop for a pedestrian green light. It seems strange that this may have been the first time I've actually cursed a car out. But anyway, high emotions come out in native languages, so it was only as effective as are the long, filthy streams of English obscenities I spit at the school photocopier machines.
Possible causes of this low:
- what I ate that day. eggplant?
- PMS. but I refuse to believe this.
- November
- lack of heat in the teachers' office
- lack of sleep/ability to think clearly
- my latest downloaded topmodel_eps cutting off before the end
- Christmas music in Japanese department stores, starting at 8AM on November 1st. there's an extra edge here simply because you can often hear every store's speaker system at the same time; this means every single adult contemporary Christmas western pop song you can think of all running together, PLUS J-Pop on top.
Probable causes of this low:
- missing family, birthdays marking the passage of time, realizing everyone's got lives and deaths of their own.
- new, dear friends (met via dayan) moving from dirty south-Osaka back to America. Not entirely of their own will, more due to the complete Nova mess and being cheated out of their salaries. So I'm lucky to have steady work, but I don't have an awesome two-man friends & lovers crew just a bike ride away anymore. After getting just a brief taste of really fun times (the lowest point having been an Axe Body Spray fight), now it's back to Me & The City, and waiting on faraway friends to visit. (It was lovely & amazing to see deadbatteries, dzima, and non-LJ users alike; it's just far too infrequent!)
- female students flirting with hot young male teacher thangs for hours and hours after class. Don't y'all got some club activities or cram schools er shit?? In true self-centered fashion, I only get low once it reminds me of how I may never really be able to flirt (at least, coast on spoken charm) with J-dudes. I keep thinking of this character that Heather wrote in a sketch last year: a French woman who wrote torrid romance novels, but in English, so climactic phrases were things like "Ohhh, oui, she just wanted to do it with him, do it a whole lot, like, over and over." This is probably the peak of flirt achievement for me here, unless I pass for fluency.
- very cold or nonexistent reception from some teachers. But, at least there are some with lovely smiles and personalities.
- teaching to kids who don't want to be taught. But, at least there are some kids who do and like to say harro.
So, it really hasn't been bad for me here. I think Osaka is the bomb, even if I am too tired during the week to do anything outside of work. At least I have work; it can even be fun. But there was a sudden, impenetrable cloud over my head for the past two days. It only cracked this evening, when I saw an adorable grandpa and little boy buying corn chips at the grocery store. If it's that easy to break, gotta hope the national birth rate flips in my favor. I'll try to do more until that moment comes. Starting tomorrow maybe.
Jams to get you through the days:
+ Elliott Smith - Elliott Smith (to kickstart)
+ Destroyer - Streethawk: A Seduction
+ wonderful, wonderful guitar pop + DDR [<3 sssuperego]
+ Weezer - The World Has Turned And Left Me Here
+ forgotten 1990s, specifically/'specially: Mark Morrison - Return of the Mack [<3 casbah7132]
+ Jilted John - The Birthday Kiss, In The Bus Shelter, most anything [<3 thefactofseraph, back in the day]
+ Kyu Sakamoto - 上を向いて歩こう Ue Wo Muite Arukou (but of course!)
An excerpt:
島村は黙って後も見ずに温泉に飛び込んだ。安心して高笑いがこみ上げて来るので、湯口に口をあてて荒っぽく嗽いをした。
部屋に戻ってから、女は横にした首を軽く浮かして鬢を小指で持ち上げながら、
「悲しいわ。」と、ただひとこと言っただけであった。
Shimamura wa damatte ato mo mizu ni onsen ni tobikonda. anshin shite takawarai ga komiagete kuru node, yuguchi ni guchi wo atete arappoku ugai wo shita. heya ni modottekara, onna wa yoko ni shita kubi wo karuku ukashite bun wo koyubi de mochiagenagara, "kanashiiwa" to, tada hitokoto itta dake de atta.
Shimamura said nothing and leaped into the bath without so much as a glance at her. In his contentment, he felt a loud laugh welling up in his throat, so he put his mouth to the tap and gargled coarsely.
Once they were back in the room, the woman, who had lain down, raised her head slightly and tugged at the hair on the side of her head with her little finger.
"I feel miserable" was all she said.
Typing out portions of Snow Country while still claiming I'm too tired to shower is my right as a stanky American with a mild case of the blues
Incidentally this is what I've been wearing for the past two weeks, plus/minus pants
Notes
cardigan = OUTSIDE JAPANESE FORCES
under-layers = INNER AMERICAN STIRRINS
pants = HALF-JAPANESE LIMINAL EXISTINS
But... are there any fixins?
Monday evening at school, while drawing pictures on prints for class, I was suddenly crying at my desk. Supreme homesickness set in without warning, tipped off by a neighboring math teacher giving the standard workplace goodbye to everyone else but me. I realized that I was being too sensitive (that ol' jawn) and reading too much into everything, but was headed down a slippery slope of wishing I were somewhere I could speak freely, act freely, hug people who understood, or at least eat pizza for cheap.
After eventually wiping off and clocking out, heading home, my knees met with an asshole-front-bumper that kept rolling through the crosswalk and refused to stop for a pedestrian green light. It seems strange that this may have been the first time I've actually cursed a car out. But anyway, high emotions come out in native languages, so it was only as effective as are the long, filthy streams of English obscenities I spit at the school photocopier machines.
Possible causes of this low:
- what I ate that day. eggplant?
- PMS. but I refuse to believe this.
- November
- lack of heat in the teachers' office
- lack of sleep/ability to think clearly
- my latest downloaded topmodel_eps cutting off before the end
- Christmas music in Japanese department stores, starting at 8AM on November 1st. there's an extra edge here simply because you can often hear every store's speaker system at the same time; this means every single adult contemporary Christmas western pop song you can think of all running together, PLUS J-Pop on top.
Probable causes of this low:
- missing family, birthdays marking the passage of time, realizing everyone's got lives and deaths of their own.
- new, dear friends (met via dayan) moving from dirty south-Osaka back to America. Not entirely of their own will, more due to the complete Nova mess and being cheated out of their salaries. So I'm lucky to have steady work, but I don't have an awesome two-man friends & lovers crew just a bike ride away anymore. After getting just a brief taste of really fun times (the lowest point having been an Axe Body Spray fight), now it's back to Me & The City, and waiting on faraway friends to visit. (It was lovely & amazing to see deadbatteries, dzima, and non-LJ users alike; it's just far too infrequent!)
- female students flirting with hot young male teacher thangs for hours and hours after class. Don't y'all got some club activities or cram schools er shit?? In true self-centered fashion, I only get low once it reminds me of how I may never really be able to flirt (at least, coast on spoken charm) with J-dudes. I keep thinking of this character that Heather wrote in a sketch last year: a French woman who wrote torrid romance novels, but in English, so climactic phrases were things like "Ohhh, oui, she just wanted to do it with him, do it a whole lot, like, over and over." This is probably the peak of flirt achievement for me here, unless I pass for fluency.
- very cold or nonexistent reception from some teachers. But, at least there are some with lovely smiles and personalities.
- teaching to kids who don't want to be taught. But, at least there are some kids who do and like to say harro.
So, it really hasn't been bad for me here. I think Osaka is the bomb, even if I am too tired during the week to do anything outside of work. At least I have work; it can even be fun. But there was a sudden, impenetrable cloud over my head for the past two days. It only cracked this evening, when I saw an adorable grandpa and little boy buying corn chips at the grocery store. If it's that easy to break, gotta hope the national birth rate flips in my favor. I'll try to do more until that moment comes. Starting tomorrow maybe.
Jams to get you through the days:
+ Elliott Smith - Elliott Smith (to kickstart)
+ Destroyer - Streethawk: A Seduction
+ wonderful, wonderful guitar pop + DDR [<3 sssuperego]
+ Weezer - The World Has Turned And Left Me Here
+ forgotten 1990s, specifically/'specially: Mark Morrison - Return of the Mack [<3 casbah7132]
+ Jilted John - The Birthday Kiss, In The Bus Shelter, most anything [<3 thefactofseraph, back in the day]
+ Kyu Sakamoto - 上を向いて歩こう Ue Wo Muite Arukou (but of course!)
An excerpt:
島村は黙って後も見ずに温泉に飛び込んだ。安心して高笑いがこみ上げて来るので、湯口に口をあてて荒っぽく嗽いをした。
部屋に戻ってから、女は横にした首を軽く浮かして鬢を小指で持ち上げながら、
「悲しいわ。」と、ただひとこと言っただけであった。
Shimamura wa damatte ato mo mizu ni onsen ni tobikonda. anshin shite takawarai ga komiagete kuru node, yuguchi ni guchi wo atete arappoku ugai wo shita. heya ni modottekara, onna wa yoko ni shita kubi wo karuku ukashite bun wo koyubi de mochiagenagara, "kanashiiwa" to, tada hitokoto itta dake de atta.
Shimamura said nothing and leaped into the bath without so much as a glance at her. In his contentment, he felt a loud laugh welling up in his throat, so he put his mouth to the tap and gargled coarsely.
Once they were back in the room, the woman, who had lain down, raised her head slightly and tugged at the hair on the side of her head with her little finger.
"I feel miserable" was all she said.
Typing out portions of Snow Country while still claiming I'm too tired to shower is my right as a stanky American with a mild case of the blues