well this week has culminated in monumental nothing. seriously. the only thing i did of note was cut my long, long hippy hair. i was looking hot, i had to admit. but with hair as thick as mine, when it's long i feel every ounce of grease just oozing over my face. so it's gone now into it's traditional 1/2" buzz style.

other nothingness, badass sensei was on the initiative during a shogakko (elementary) visit. but my job was made easy because the 1st and 2nd graders were gone becuase of a cold epidemic! 60 kids, out for 2 days. crazy!

SOMETHINGNESS! i finished All Quiet on the Western Front. dang it was good. expect a book report soon!! (someone hold me accountable to that). it was so good, i found the 1930 film at my video store and watched it. This was maybe my first 30's movie i've ever watched in its entirety. but as always, especially in the case with Jurassic Park, the book was better than the movie (and the amusement park ride).

SOMETHINGNESS! i got over being sick. this after about two weeks. schreesh! i hate not having central heating. but spring is starting to bloom!

RESOLUTION _0001
i made a resolution to watch more japanese movies. this is because, they tend to be super artsy (like with long shots where you hear airconditioners and wind), and i realized, if i leave japan i will have have missed my opportunity to see japanese movies and i'd kick my self in the ass for it after my life as a JET. so, my goal is "maybe one a week". add that up, that's 50,000 movies or something.

the prophet lomo, called belteshazzar
so i bought this new camera and its fun and exciting and starting to get expensive because i use a lot of poorly wound rolls. but i'm definitely having fun with it... but here's what the pictures started saying to me.

i look at them and i see the same pictures over and over taken from different angles or locomotions. like the flooded rice paddy near my house. i have about 54389034098234098230489234 pictures of that. blerrrrgh. i've just noticed that my pictures are basically taken all from the same street. most of my life is spent driving up and down the main road in my town. and that, as some might expect, made me depressed a bit. it kind of signals lack of adventure to me.

then there's the 400¥ that i spend every morning at the FAMILY MART. every morning i buy (if it's in stock): Cream Cheese Bread, Tuna Rice Ball, and Kirin Milk Coffee. i started noticing this especially because i know the people who work there like they're my friends. the woman behind the counter smiles at me everyday, inquires about my health, and even stops by to find me in the gym and cheers me on. then one day one of the younger (read, cuter) girls who works the evenings wore some cute glasses and i said, "nice glasses" and she noticed i noticed and we both smiled about that. めがねコン! point being: the existence of such a standard morning routine, though quite essentially d@ve rupert-esque, has made me wonder about my awesome-itude lately.

thanks lomo, for bringing this up to me. some of the best therapy money can buy! and it's russian! comrade.

cue the violin music!
so that's some of what's been going on. that's all for today. i will hopefully write that book report soon. i'm writing songs, i think... maybe i'll finish one, record it and post it. i bought a canvas the other day and i'm going to start painting some. i'm excited. i went to a coffee shop in town today where two of the three employees were midgets... i'll talk more about this at a later date... zombies, mike, zombies.

much to my chagrin i spent the money and paid the good people at movabletype the 10,000yen they were asking for the new software. and i couldn't be happier. though my lomo goes down as best purchase of 2005, this goes down near the top. hot dog.

Supertown is famous for...
lots of things really. i'm reading my kids essays that tell me all about Supertown and the famous things it has. one is the famous Matsutake Mushroom. selling price for a good sized Matsutake Mushroom: ~$350USD. it's the world's most expensive thing ever.

that's the only thing that has stood out. thus ends my post. have a good day.

oh! and i bought a video game on Friday night (the new bond, it's pretty sweet). but i didn't play it that night and i didn't even remember i bought it until the next afternoon. i've come leaps and bounds in video game addiction.

and by that i mean i bought a Lomo. the Lomo is a compact little russian camera (a la cold war). the factory was going to be closed down but some people petitioned to keep it open because the camera itself has developed a little cult following. it takes brilliant pictures with vivid colors and performs extremely well in low light situations without the need for a flash. it also has a peculiar way of focusing, it's always a surprise on what it -the camera- decided was most important.

some might call the lack of focus and the shakiness "ugly" but i call it "beautiful, with a nostalgic 1970s feel".

The Girl In My Town Who Is The Only One With An Accent, we'll call her Mary for short, bought one in December because she saw it in some fashion magazine. She showed me her pictures and I was instantaneously sold. in Japan you can only buy the Lomo in Osaka and Tokyo. Mary goes into Osaka more often than i do, so i gave her a wad of cash and sent her on her way.

then one day in Japanuary (!), she presented me with my Lomo as we were trying to fit her bike into my tiny car. we immediately started snapping pictures, laughing with joy at the camera and the comedy of her granny bike stuffed into my miniature car. unfortunately, i loaded that roll of film wrong so it took no pictures ($5 mistake no.1), daang. but i got the hang of loading the film and you can see my progress since then...

you can find most of my Lomo pictures on howdy mr.photoblog! or you can visit my more public (viewed by total strangers) lomohome on the international lomography society website. that has less photos, but it's more arty. i'm addicted to the lomography website. i just click [random home] and i find someone's art. or, i browse the world! that's greatness i tell ya. greatness.

to be honest, it's a little vulnerable to put up images on the internet that's out of my control (out of wimpkiller, that is). but i guess with Google anyone can find my pictures. so it's no different. but... stranger danger!

i like the challenge of getting only one shot at something and then not knowing at all how it will come out in the end. i feel in a lot of ways i've graduated from digital cameras, it's a hell of a lot more expensive, but it's rewarding.

by far the best purchase of 2005 thus far. but, as i said, the expenses don't stop there. developing film, getting the film put on CD for internetting purposes, and developing blank rolls is starting to take a tally. but all is worth it. in fact, i may buy another camera (the Holga) which is like a chinese toy with a color flash that weighs one ounce and you have to tape shut with electrical tape to keep the light out. Mary has one, it's looks awesome and it's supposed to take beautiful vibrant and corroded pictures.

thus ends the long, exasperated story of a boy and his new retro camera.

well. i've gotten questions in emails about any more exciting snowboard stories. and unfortunately, the answer is no. frankly, i've been doing a whole lot of nothing. allow me to share...

last friday was a holiday. japan celebrated "Foundation Day". Happy Day-Japan-Was-Created-By-The-Sun-Goddess. so we get the day off of work. what did i do? i worked. d'oh. i was asked to speak at a "symposium" in my town on the topic of Elementary School Compulsory English Education - this was to be all in japanese. par for the course, d@ve rupert didn't write down anything he had in his head. i had planned to of course, but didn't. it went off well i think. i talked about how teaching Elementary kids is great, except for the Kancho. This was said to about 10 different principals from other parts of the prefecture. score one for team awesome.

the meeting went well, except while i was inside the temperature outside dropped like 100 degrees and it was stupid cold outside when i went to watch my kids play softball and then to my car. stupid cold.

as a result, i spent the weekend sick. i think my body just decided to shut down this weekend and demand laziness. i think my body has for a long time required this, but i neglect it... i need to just laze around on the weekends. or i die...

kleenex piles up by my bed everynight. i set the box next to me before i go to sleep and i wake up and find a pile of snot-laden cotton wads surrounding me.

being sick while being abroad just sucks. i can handle it though, don't get me wrong, i'm not pleaing for pity. it's just even less fun than being sick in your motherland. the last thing you wanna do while your sick is try to translate some bottle of medicine. you can't call mom and complain. blowing your nose here is considered rude, while constant sniffing isn't. i don't know how they feel about the streaks of crusted snot on my cotton sleeves.

my singing voice is gone.

i was going to skip work today but decided not to (too much of a hassle - long story - gotta go to the hospital and get a doctors note to take sick leave), worked out for the best because 6 or 7 parents showed up to my first class to watch me teach their children. surprise! i had elementary school today. got kancho'd. yay. i made the kids hold their noses and say "good morning!" to imitate my sick voice. one girl got a bloody nose. poor girl. and i saw other kids miming that she picked her nose and made it bloody. poor girl.

on monday, my teacher told me that i didn't need to come to class because i was sick and looked "lousy". i agreed. i think she really just found me useless because i couldn't pronounce things correctly through my gigantic nose of snot.

i went out for curry and a movie on sunday with Erikku and Makkusu to cheer me up. the japanese curry was a bad idea. made me wanna vomit. i have this weird thing, and these guys can attest, every time i eat japanese curry, i get the hiccups. i think they're getting progressively louder on average.

um... so that's that. that's what i've been NOT up to. hope you've been doing more.

today's quote: "i thought jump rope was a japanese sport. but they also jump rope in other countries" (this was after i informed someone that we do, indeed, jump rope in elementary schools in the west).

remember that scene in The Lord of the Rings where the Ents have to discuss the fall of Soren-Kirkagaard and they sit patiently and mull for a long time because "it takes a long time to say things in Entish."

that's what Japan is like.

today's meeting started off slow. no one, including the principal, wants to break the ice... so a lot of sitting patiently, shifting papers is involved... then the principal asks, "Anything to communicate today...?"

enter long silence. paper shuffling.

then 5 minutes later one teacher explains that a bell was broken and that maybe, if someone should think so, but this is the best solution, but i can't assert that - we should lock the door to the music room...

you can't just say anything here. throwing out your opinion, no matter how valid it is, is sort of like taking a crap in the middle of the floor.

so... it's quiet. and statements are formed in a way that is maybe more like a question? ya know?

then the principal chimes in with this story:

"oh yes, i saw kids throwing rocks at a window...
ha ha ha.
throwing rocks...
ha ha ha.
but yeah, they were throwing rocks..."

enter silence. laughter is supposed to soften the statement. notice how the anecdote had nothing to do with the broken bell. notice also how the statement formed no opinion like even the ever so applicable "they should stop throwing the rocks." the secret is, it was implied!

then comes the time for every teacher to give their opinion about the bell. even if it agrees entirely, it is done sensitively and delivered slowly...

like the Ents.

so every teacher agrees that the broken bell is a sad thing and they try their best, also, to not crap on the floor.

then every issue is approached this way. lots of thinking noises are made.
. . .
. . .
. . .
ha ha ha

now what i'm not saying is that one way is better than the next. i will say that the western way is a lot more efficient time-wise, but "better", that's just perspective. in the west, time is money. here, time is just spent. the complete social freedom to say whatever you want is a western fundamental a la the first amendment. lucky us.

this is the Japanese concept of CHINMOKU (silence). where in a country where community is placed far, far above the individual silence is often the best policy. and the most welcome form of communication.

Q1. Do you think that you could live and function in a society where group is more important than the individual's needs?

Q2. Name an example (besides dinner plans) where you went without complaint or commentary with the group's/head's decision.

Q3. When is it good to be silent in western society?

Q4. Is giving your opinion openly important? Answer YES or NO without giving your opinion.

Q5. Is giving your opinion a fundamental liberty? Which is more important Democracy or Free (Unhindered) Speech?