we'll i feel like no one is talking to me. i've emailed everyone i know almost about this "Wicked Screensaver" i saw and thier "Application" or their "Details". some of them were just a simple "Thank You" but no one seems to be responding to my emails. if they do its just a reply with no content.

seriously though, i've gotten like a million of those virus emails going through my inbox and i'm not sure if that virus is mac compatible. maybe chase could tell me. but i learned a valuable lesson...don't send a mass email right before a virus comes out. i think i've been pegged by everyone in hope242's address. pretty rediculous.

some funny things that have happened
i can really only think of one and its not so cultural. the other day i sprayed cologne in my armpits instead of deodorant. funny thing is i don't even use spray deodorant and haven't really since one month in highschool. why i decided my cologne was good enough for deodorant, i don't know...needless to say i was tired.

as far as karaoke videos go, i don't have any of myself but i do have this embarrassing one of some kids that Shari Lim knows. Slim thinks that my karaoke video will be similar...equally topless i suppose, probably more ninja.

look out kids, a gaijin is lurking around the school.
well its true. i'm finally at my junior high school. but i'm kind of doing the same thing i was doing at the bored of ed. [sic], that is, sitting around looking busy. for example today, i found these old english zine things my predecessor left (WATCH YOUR BACK!) and they had riddles in them. i was busy for hours trying to figure out who lives next to who and what kind of stuff they have. i'll probably post that stuff on the bbs for fun and games... but despite my complaining, its been great - i finally realized i need to quit whining about my situation because even if i have to sit at a desk all the time, its alright. people have really busted it to take care of me and i just whine about being bored and tired of studying japanese.

school official starts september first, thus i officially start teaching next week. so i'll be busy after that. and, i got to teach today!...well it was more like sit around and give kids answers to homework...because they look at you, having tried their hardest and all you see is usable, but incorrect english. its sort of a tapering of what they already know.

and i'll say this, knowing that it will sound incriminating but know its not the case, japanese school girls are amazing. they are so funny. and bizzarre in so many ways. allow me to explain. the girls will file into the teachers room in a flock and giggle and act like they are looking around at a picture by my desk but then loom...wanting to ask a question but instead they just giggle a lot and then the nominated "alpha female" will get the go ahead (after much deliberation) to ask the question "What is your name?" and i say "David" (or "Deeeeibittto") and then they confer and giggle. one girl fell on the ground at one point. so much giggling. its really kind of funny. and their not like the american junior high girls, most of them are involved in some sort of sport and just rock it all sweaty and g-nasty...like a flock of tomboys. there are these two girls in particular, who i taught today, they burst in giggling and then point at phrases in a picture book for like half an hour. it was fun. they love the gaijin. then they said "the Canadian ALT, she spoke Kansai-ben (the local dialect) good." thanks (for nothing). i have a long way to go in speaking like a real person.

in summary, i'm glad to be at my school now. we have a kendo club that i might try to get my butt kicked at. they also teach home economics at our school...so i'll maybe learn to cook. they also teach japanese music classes...so i might learn some japanese instruments like the Koto and Shamisen...bing bannnng booooonnng! ping ting gnang! i'll be radical and ethnic. thus i'd be able to hold my weight at hippy drum circles.

well that's it for today. i'm trying to give more bite sized portions of my life so you can get a taste of what's going on. but don't fret! more on the way! a rupert-smorgeshborg! i can't spell!

i forgot to mention the most impacting part of going to church on sunday. after church we had lunch with the church (6 people). one of the ladies there was an 81 year old woman, who looked 60 of course. but she had brought with her, coincidentally, a magazine from 1985 that had a "Japan 40 Years Ago". the magazine of course chronicled pre-and-postwar compared to modern japan. in there i saw pictures that they rarely show you in american textbooks of a decimated japan, a leveled tokyo around the imperial palace. the woman went on to say that she was living in tokyo at the time of the bombings. her quote [translated by me from japanese] was, "from tokyo to yokohama, there were many dead people, many." i live within a nation of extremely, almost sickeningly-so, humble people, employed by a government that was humbled by atomic energy in its destructive form. the lady went on to say, "i was your age then."

i had a lot of other funny stories to post after this, but as i type the words fall to the floor. i think i'm just sobered by that story. take a day or so to think about it...and i'll be back with the funny in a day or two.

i was convinced for a good amount of time i was unable to use the asian squatty potty due to lack of athletic ability...but through a system of trial and error i championed this foe.

yet another post where i do things in reverse chronological (or non-chronological) order! i'm pretty good at this if you haven't noticed. so be sure to put the bits and pieces together to form an actual week.

i went to church today (for you history majors)
this morning johanna, from kaibara, and i went to a church here in Supertown. we had a little fiasco dealing with me giving her and countless other people the wrong phone number and her being stranded at the train station for an hour but we showed up at the church...late of course. church was quite interesting. including the pastor and the piano player and the foreigners there were eight people at church this morning. whoa. the whole service (obviously) was in japanese and we were for the most part lost. i was able to read and sing from the hymnal but anything beyond that was a blur of japanese and hand motions.

two of the people, a mother and her teenage son, were nepalese. that was interesting. appearantly the mother married a japanese man and moved to japan twenty years ago.

sidenote: lots of foreigners in Supertown...apperantly marrying non-japanese women is becoming more and more popular. as i heard it described, "like you can go to the phillipines for a weekend and get a beautiful woman to be your wife, she may not love you necessarily but she'll do anything to leave." interesting dilemia for a essentially homogenius people. i'm not saying this woman falls under that catagory, its just a trend i'm recognising.

so church was slim. i don't think i've ever been to a church with that (not-so) many people. it was good. i think i realized in that moment why the day of pentecost was so essential in church history. after church we ate with everyone. it turns out that i had already met the piano player, who works for the city, before today when i went to go visit the alternative school in Supertown. small town, eh?

for those of you who don't know or are wondering, japan is on the books 1% christian. though most statistics show 1/10 of 1%...and most of the christians are concentrated in bigger cities. so by that math 1 out of every 1000 people is a christian...and even less here in the country. interesting to say the least. but that's just a short note...you can look online for a better history of christianity in japan. interesting enough, the guy Tokugawa Ieyasu (and Hidetomi) who is mentioned frequently in the history of christianity in japan was the guy commissioned Supertown castle to be built.

well enough history. it was quite exciting to go to church in japan. this church felt like an episcopal church sort of with its liturgy and hymnal...but it wasn't...they didn't quite know what to call it. but for me it was exciting to go to church where there's not a lot of people going. its not the cultural norm to go to church like it is in the states. gave me a little different perspective.

let's play "name that meat" again!
i was invited to a barbecue on friday night with my apartment complex celebrating me. it was fun. a lot of teachers showed up. at the barbecue all the men stand around the grill and put meat on it until its cooked then they eat it straight off the grill while the women more or less keep the food coming and keep the kids entertained to keep them from falling into the fire.

i had a good time. i love my neighbors. they're really nice and they all can speak a little, if not a lot, of english. so i can usually communicate with them most times. and the kids don't scream at me anymore. and one of my neighbors wants to eat a meal each week or so...i'm down. he and his wife are going to teach me how to cook japanese food..

finally, on the barbecue was none other than pork tongue. which is a tough piece of meat. kind of like eating your own tongue after its been cooked and dead for awhile. then i ate squid i think...i'm not too sure what it was. yum...my mom wrote me this week and said

sounds like you are loving the karoake! and it's hard to believe my little vegetarian is now eating raw beef.....!!!

i like my mom.

i would walk five hundred meters! (vertically)
on saturday i climbed a mountain. i was exploring the city and i made it almost to the other city, kaibara, which is separated from Supertown by a mountain and a tunnel. i was looking around this little one lane villiage and i saw this temple-y looking place but all the signs seemed to say that this trail goes to the top of a mountain. so i started on the trail. i found myself feeling a little weird walking past little shinto/buddhist shrines hidded on the mountain but i finally said to myself "if i don't get over that, i'm never going to see anything cool in japan...because everything- every mountain trail, every river, every thing- has some sort of shrine on it." and in fact, if you get down the the shintoism, everything -the mountain itself, for example- is a god. so i climbed on. the trail said 110m to the shrine and i was like "that's easy." then i got to the shrine and i wasn't high up but there was sign that said something was 270m away. i looked at the steep trail goign up the almost vertical volcanic mountain and said...ok. so i labor up this hill for what feels like forever. for some reason Athletic Dave didn't kick in and only Sweaty Huffy-Puffy Dave was around. well i finished my 270m and was greeted by a sign that said "900m". are you kidding me?! is this some kind of joke? having nothing else to do, i decided to climb.

at about 450m into the 900m vertical ascent there was a split off to some temple but it didn't have a distance marking so i didn't go down the trail because it could have taken forever. and my goal was the summit. so i kept climbing. rounding the corner i saw a snake who slithered off the trail. stomping up the rest of the mountain it started toget a little flatter and more beautiful. i now valleys of trees. i was attacked by a fearless bug the size of Mothra. at 650m there was a shrine, but it had been destroyed. shards of shrine were everywhere. but for somereason there was a port-o-poddy up there as well.

climbing on i made it to the top! there were the rocks that that were piled in an interesting natural formation. i got as high as i could while still feeling safe. the story about the guy who got pinned under a rock and had to cut his own arm off was echoing in my head. in my head i heard "never trek alone" over and over... the view was amazing up there though- too bad i didn't have a camera. but it turns out i climbed over and was on the kaibara side of the mountain. i walked to antoher town...over a mountain! that was my great achievement.

pause for a technical update
i've added some pictures to the blog. you can catch them by reading through the posts that are below. osaka pictures are up. and here's a picture of japan's giant bugs!. its called a cicada. like a locust but more vicious. and it speaks german. there are no bugs in japan if you want to see all my photos (i've posted) thus far go to: http://www.wimpkiller.com/howdy/photoblog and browse through the ghetto index. but most of those should be available through the blog. i apologize for those using dial-up. i bet this blog is a pain in the butt. i'll see if can get a text only version going for you. we'll see what happens.

in group-out group
in all my japanese classes they stress this deal about in-group/out-group. like people who are inside of your circle and outside. usually it is drawn along club lines in school and then along profession lines as you grow up. i think i've been struggling with that some this past week. and i finally realized it at some point on saturday. i'm a foreigner. i officially am not in apart of any group other than the foreigners group. the Dukes of Tanba County (myself and the Kaibara crew) are awesome. we rock and roll...but as for japanese association, i think that it adds a bit of isolation. but its only a matter of time before i'm partly accepted by someone. its interesting.

i bet it gets better this week because i'll start going to school. i've been working in the board of education all this time and i'm finally going to my school, if all goes well, tomorrow. at the BOE no one speaks english super super well, so its constant challenge on my part... that's where school will be nice because hey, i work with english teachers! after a long week of "nihongo nihongo nihongo" i'm ready to speak some english. and plus, i'll start meeting kiddos. its weird i don't know any of them yet, even though they already probably know who i am. its funny because they haven't been formally introduced to me, so when we see eachother we don't talk. but they could be shy kids as well. cute.

speaking of well...well, i better go. i'm tired and i got work in the morning. i hope you guys have a good time and i'll try and get better at posting pictures along with the blog so you don't have to wait a month until they show up. somebody bust my chops on that. ok take care and God bless.

cops 'round these parts do things differently. they set up a speed trap outside my apartments. basically here's how things shake down...the cops come with two cars and a paddy wagon set up some tables and chairs (to process tickets) and then they stick a guy with a walkie talkie at the end of my little side road, by the main road, to flag down folks who have been caught by someone clocking further on down.

sounds like your basic speed trap right? well, did i mention that they set up signs? in big red letters they say "SPEED TRAP!" or the japanese equivalent. it was amazing to me to see so many people getting pulled over into my little corner of Supertown. apperently this is the only speed trap they have in Supertown and they do it sort of bi-annually...or something. and its always in the same place. the cops also while clocking people will have their lights running at all times. hm.... needless to say, that's not how they do it at home.

dinner with the neighbors
i like my neighbors. most of them are young teachers here in the Yama. we're going to have a barbecue on friday and make okonomiyake, a delicious (and fatty) japanese dish that has no equivalent in the states...unless beefy, meaty, seafoody, pancake omlet with cabbage and noodles and mayonaise is a dish in the states somewhere. i like it alot. and they're going to teach me how to make some (i think)! my japanese cooking has increased about 4000% since i've been here. i'll tack that on my date-able resume.

one set of my neighbors invited me to eat dinner with them last night. it was wonderful. they have a little baby. i might have mentioned him before, but whenever this kid sees me he freaks out and cries. must be the eye scar. but, after a long time in his apartment and his parents accepting me, he too played with me. i simply said "one, five" in japanese (my apartment number) and he started giving me a number one on his hand...and then a number five. so i made a new friend. but i pulled a fast one on him today because i was wearing my glasses...sent him into another crying spell...but i pulled my glasses off and waived "bye bye" and he stopped and waved back. cute. absolutely cute.

Another Night in the 'Bara. Racism Abounds?
i went to Kaibara again tonight to hang out with my crew there - Johanna, Dan, and Keith. after a few long days in my office i was in need of some english communication. so i drove out there. and it was worth it.

we decided, as usual, to go out to eat. we decided to go to this sushi restaurant that we had tried to eat at on sunday - on sunday our plans were foiled because they were about to close - this time we walk in, us our rowdy posse of foreignness, and the guy starts giving me this talk about how there's not a lot of sushi and he's sorry...like there's no hachimachi and salmon...and he's looking at us like "leave." i'm pretty sure this look is universal. but, i was a bit confused. other families were just sitting around and eating merrily...i tried to get him to repeat, like did he want us to leave. bewildered, dan decided to pull the foreigner card and just go sit down. good play. we all followed suit and it was a bit weird at first but we enjoyed our sushi via conveyer belt. i love conveyor belt sushi. afterwards we went for gellato, have you tried this stuff? its good. then we watched snatch over at keith's. brad pitt is amazing in that movie.

well, i'm outta here. busy day tomorrow of sitting around. i've constructed a to-do list - i make to-do lists, not sure if that's good or bad - the list has about 1000 objectives on it. some dealing with wimpkiller, but some with objectives like "clean". its the simple things sometimes. so i better get to sleep. yes, sleep...my long lost friend. can i get a grant for sleep research and sleep 127 hours consecutively? someone, chase, research that for me. ok. take care my friends, family, country- or ex-countrymen and God bless.