excuse the bitterness and depressingness of this post. tomorrow is another day....

carless, i ride my bike to work. i love the bike. it's a normal day. with the fog and my early start on the day i beat the regular student traffic. it's really quite a zombie movie feeling when i'm riding and no one is around me. i think, just maybe this is the day...

so i park my bike and spend a day being bad-ass sensei. i babysat two classes and wrote a haiku on the board about killing loud students (in japanese). japanese haikus are my new thing. i'm really quite decent at them and i may take my haiku comedy show on the road. we'll see... so yeah, i was bad ass sensei.

then my day was over, i worked overtime just a bit. that was okay because it was raining and i couldn't ride my bike anyhow. by the time i was done overtiming the drizzle had let up, so i said my daily ceremony of goodbyes - lit."i'm leaving before you, i am doing something rude" - and i go out to my bike. noticing the water on the seat i start to wipe it off. the texture however is not water, but upon further inspection, it's spit. some hooligan hocked a loogie on my bike seat.

this was after a conversation last week where i was acting like a popular korean drama actor Yon-sama, and a kid told me he hates foreigners. i told him, "i love you. i love this school". he then told me to "go home". i told him, i can't.

this after i stood up to another student last week who was using his cell phone in class to turn on and off the TV. and he said the ever popular "this is japan, why don't you speak japanese?" clearly this kid doesn't understand my job. so i tell him in japanese, "this is english class."

the loogie, after just a few days ago i exit the grocery store to find someone's discarded garbage on my bike. upsetting but usual because this happens almost everytime i park my bike at the train station.

needless to say, i went home hating japan... no smiles on the bike ride home. just submersed into my iPod as the rain began to drizzle down again.

i'm not rosa parks
now, i'm know for sure i'm not like Rosa Parks or anything like that. i'd be absurd to think that (thanks sarah vowell). but i definitely am feeling discriminated against... do other teachers get loogies on their vehicles. do they get discarded trash on their seats? i'd confidently say "no." do other teachers get told they're hated because of where they come from. "no."

it honestly makes me sick to think of what African-Americans went through in our country, 100+ years after emacipation and people still hate them. people still think of "them" as different, as if from another country and not entitled to the same things us white, pure-blooded americans are. coincidentally, japan's doors have only been open about the same 100+ years... japanese culture is taught to them in a way that says "this is japanese, totally incomprehensible by people who are not japanese". while what defines american culture (and a lot of the west) is that it's an amalgamation of various cultures.

i think, "have i not loved japan?" i've spent years studying the language and the culture. based on my degree, i'm officially a certified Japanoligist. i've spent hours in prayer and shed countless tears for this country. and this is how i'm repaid... the loogie of a "rebellious" fifteen year old on my bike. now i'm not comparing myself to Jesus or anything, but i can't help but to think about my Lord. carrying the cross on the way to Calvary to die for the sins of the world, and he received the same gift i did. a loogie. is this joining in the sufferings? i'm not sure...

so these are the thoughts that are running through my head. i'm brimming with anger. i was pretty livid. i craved needless destruction. i rode to my pottery class contemplating skipping because i was so upset. but, i committed to go hoping that the foreign-friendly pottery folks would help me re-adjust my mal-adjustment. and they did, a bit, in the end.

so on the way to class i grabbed some food from the supermarket, not the normal one i go to, one farther away from my house... and i walk outside... to my parked bike... and find trash discarded in my basket...

fuck you japan. i still love you.

cries she with silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore."

rather than watching japanese TV (people golfing with varous funny things like twig brooms, umbrellas, and baseball bats) i'll give you a blog about my somewhat eventful day.

you might remember from previous posts about how much i love my bike. i've really enjoyed not having a car and riding around on my bike. i actually rate my music by how good it would sound on my bike. there's a necessary bpm rate that is needed to match a good peddle rate. when that happens - it's glorious.

mike, i'd like to thank you for the Against Me!

so, today i went to the place where i'm buying my car because they were having this little festival. i put my name in a drawing for a lottery and I WON! guess what i won! a new bike!! yeahhHH! this one is smaller and a lot cooler than my granny bike. and it's collapsable! meaning, i can stuff it into a car if i need to. or, i can take it on the train with me and ride it around town. though it's probably really rude to take your bike on the train... so i might not do it often. but i'm altogether excited about the new bike. it's like a dream come true. exciting.

now i just need a bike lock and two sets of keys...

another guy from my town is going home for christmas as well, and we just pause and think of the goodness that is american food. and the phrase cobbler came up... and we paused to think. because it was meet and right so to do. i get kind of teary eyed when i think of burritos. be thankful you all.

for thanksgiving i ate an injun
i sat down by myself last night over my rice, tuna & tofu with sesame seed dressing concoction and the compacted stress from my work, bad students (most infamous kids in the tri-county area! yeah!), and the trash that gets purposefully discarded into my bicycle by (whom i presume to be) students when i go into the supermarket, due to all this, i decided to pray before my meal.

i put the chopsticks down and started to pray and prayers of thanksgiving came spilling out of my mouth. thankful for the food before me, the money i have to buy it, the job that -though is cursed against me- pays me to deal with jerky kids, and then just the opportunity to be here in japan. the opportunity to go home in a month to see friends and family...

these prayers fell out of my mouth on wednesday night. ironically, the thanksgiving holiday wasn't even in my scope of thinking, yet that spirit flowed out of my mouth. (especially now that i've written it) i don't think i can forget this thanksgiving... fountain.

the car has been thrown away
so the car i bought last year - a lexus by american standards - that i bought for $900 - has died. so i'm in the process of buying a new car, small and japanesey, which i'm really excited about. it's costing a pretty yen, but i'm an adult now so i'm buying it... i don't know what that means, but it's how i feel. so today they picked up my current car to throw it away since it's resale value is $0. awesome really. but the other car hasn't come through yet because of some paperwork or something. i should get it next week - i'll post pictures.

so nowadays i'm riding my bike here and there. partly because my car was dying and i felt unsafe in it. and partly for added health benefits. but mostly because i love my bike. i have a love affair with my bikes that i can't explain completely. i guess it started in 5th & 6th grade when i'd ride my bike endlessly... i love it.

i bought gloves today too (two pairs actually) so that i'll be warm while trucking around on my bike. i'm a warm m*&$#@*$#!er this winter. no joking around.

sleep becomes me
last night i went to bed at or around the magical hour of 8PM. i woke up at 330AM and cursed because i probably couldn't get back to sleep. but i got back to sleep and woke up late. i'm a professional.

i think i'll reprise last night's performance, and check out early tonight. so long y'all. and have a happy thanksgiving.

i booked my tickets for christmas trip. this year i'm coming back home for the holidays. no surprises this time. i'm a little bummed to not be traveling to some exotic asian paradise, but that is eclipsed by my drooling excitement to come home for the holidays. perhaps i'll wipe my butt with my hand again so that i feel like i'm in a foreign country and to reminice on last year.

changing the subject. y'all, all i can think about are burritos. we don't have burritos here. let me repeat. i live a life without burritos now.

here's a short list of other things i'm craving:

veggie burgers
authentic mexican food made in the '04
pancake breakfasts
Hashbrowns - real ones not McDonald's
pink lemonade from concentrate - *new craving*
anything avacado based
that casserole thing mom makes me
and any other casserole really
ice cream with cookie dough
and of course, my precious*.

i failed ya, boss, and i failed you all
i didn't make the deadline. par for the course for ol' d@ve rupert. but it's good. because in the last two weeks i've had two or three songs come together and they're probably gonna make the album decent. i hope. my biggest issue right now is time signatures and what to do about drums in awkward time signatures since garage band doesn't equip those kinds of loops. and though i rock like a hurricane at the drums, i probably can't do it... keeping time is also a hard thing to do.

i've scratch tracks for most of the songs. etched out a way to do it... but it's just not coming all together... yet. thank god tomorrow is a day off and i'll attack my computer with my ethnomusicology!

i think, though i feel pressured by the next dead line, i should be patient and pursue excellence. it's definitely my style to say "fuck it, good enough. i can't do any better." but i have to be patient and picky with my songs. and i have to learn how to finish them well... story of my life, right there. mark driscoll, where's a sermon when i need one?

hoity-toity europeans and me
so i joined the ranks of the elite for one day. i went to the European Film Festival being held in Osaka. three films were on the menu and here's my reviews:

wilbur wants to kill himself: a slightly comedic, slightly depressing movie about life and death. i think it's best summed up as: a story about a guy who wants life, but can't live it; and a guy who doesn't want life, but gets it. i'd give it four stars if i possessed such a thing. beautiful cinematography i thought. and plenty of scottish accents. you should definitely see it if you have the chance.

my father rua alguem 5555: this was a tale about a boy who tries to turn in his guilty nazi father, an ex-S.S. member who oversaw Auschwitz. the father's role is played by none other than "cold, dead hands" himself, Charlton Heston. it's weird to watch this movie and see Moses from The Ten Commandments defend the Nazi interment camps. and when you just listen him talk you start to believe him because it's reminicent of all those old "walk through the holyland" videos they show on TBN... but then you remember he's talking about the nazis. i wish i could say this movie was good... but i can't. it was poor all around i felt. without the heston cameo, it'd be even worse. i was falling asleep in the first ten minutes of the film.

16 years of alcohol: this was a great movie. a tie with the first one. it's about a guy who's life is ruined by alcohol. his vision of love and beauty is shattered. he trades it in for the life of a skinhead. that whole aspect of the movie moved me.
-- after highschool skinheads in movies and all that crap seems so real to me and anytime they show up it makes me want to cry. it's creepy. i wonder if anyone else from the ol' Fitz scene understands what i feel... --
back to the review. it was a good movie. and i think the most hollywood like. it just flowed well. the acting wasn't good, but it was independent enough... i liked it. and the soundtrack ruled as well. and any movie with a scene in a record store put in there to intentionally tout off the director/screenwriter's knowlege, good taste, and opinion about music is absolute brilliance... i thought it was good.

in all, i thought that it was a good day, minus the "my father". it felt really snotty to be seeing and taking part in an International Film Festival while living abroad. like i'll rove about parties sipping champagne saying "i remember this Danish/Scottish Film i saw in Osaka during the International Film Festival there... nyuuuh". i'm such a snot now.

doing math and my future
i'm thinking about doing the 3rd year of JET. it's almost certain. and i was doing the math just today. i'll be 26 when i (maybe) leave the island and i'll have spent 3 years living in a foreign country. adding that up and doing some long division, i'll have spent about 1/9th my life living abroad (and alone barring any success of this year's "shooting for july" campaign). that's a long time for a boy from nebraska. but, i think it's what i should do.

crazy really. i'm getting old. old. old. old. echo. echo.

i leave you here
good bye. i'll be back sometime this week i imagine. maybe with some hot new mp3s for you to put into your ears. it will whet your appetite. but for the meanwhile, i'm gonna lay low. how about you email me this week and let me know what's going on in your life. i'll do my best to email you back. ok?

*if you do not know what "my precious" is, then i will disavow any knowledge of you at the time of my coming. for many will come to me saying "have we not loved you?" and i will say "i do not know your name".

i teach kids english everyday and i can't help but flashback to my learning of japanese. and nearly every day i'm reminded of when my teacher Mizobe-sensei was teaching us the syllabary and he held up a card and said, "this is 'hi' ("HEE"), it means fart" and then started laughing. i think only my friend Rafika and I noticed the comment. it was the funniest thing we'd ever heard.

and i think about that moment almost every day.

like the day when i told the kids "i took medicine this morning so David-sensei feels a little drunk." no one batted an eye.

take that rasputin!
i'm reading a book called The Japanese Mind and it's pretty crazy. it's rehashing a lot of what i knew already about japan before coming. but i'm also understanding it a lot better. in a lot of ways, i feel like i'm reading a book about myself.

part of me wants to trancend reality and make that statement something like "i'm a woman born in a man's body" or something like that but i can't make that. i'm American and i look exaclty like Tom Cruise, i can't argue facts. i'm about as American as they come. but reading this book i'm understanding a little about myself...

if you don't believe in God you can skip a few paragraphs, but it's like God knitted me into this culture, allowed me to study it and now breathe it, to understand myself some more... i feel knitted, nicely.

i'd say more, but every time i write the words it makes me sound like a heritic. i can't verbalize (typalize) what i'm thinking without wanting to send myself an email saying "i read your blog. so, how are you doing? i mean really." so i stop short and if i find words to explain i'll include them in my manifesto.... coming out post-humus!!

flax burns quickly, sugar
NEWSFLASH!: there's been a recent epidemic breaking out on my junior high campus. it's tongue twisters. out of control. widespread interest in how much wood woodchuck could chuck and sally and her seashells are causing pyoko pyoko panic! there's exchange happening and the currency is human tongues! knife knife knife!!

sun -> window -> curtain -> eyes -> curse
my current enemy, the god of the Zoroastrians, will soon be pushing on my face as my clock screams it's daily morning curses. and my slumber will shed. my cocoon of blankets will be discarded and rather than wings i will don a suit..

goodnight.