Finally got some weekend action going here; and I was thinking about my last class of the week. It's this group of like 10 middle-aged people, who got together, formed an English club, and wanted a native speaker to "teach" them English. Some of them aren't bad: they actually ask questions and participate in class. But others are just horrible.
I don't know if this method is peculiar to me, but usually, when I'm teaching, the English vocabulary I choose is based off the Japanese vocab I know. Seem strange? Not really. I figure that if I know a word in Japanese, it's a good bet that any moron student knows that word as well. Let's put things in perspective: the Japanese have a national obsession with English, and start studying it in school from Jr. High on. That means at least 6 years through required schooling, plus like 4 more years if they go through college. I studied for one year in college, and have been studying in my (minimal) spare time while working a horrible job here in Japan.
But! They are still bad. I feel as if my head will explode, when I must rephrase a question about a million times, and am thinking of the direct Japanese translation in my head. In the book this class uses, there are these little sections with "crazy" English phrases. Today's phrase was "I'd give anything for a pizza." Heck, doesn't that seem simple enough? This guy wants pizza! He would give anything for it! Money! His wristwatch! His liver! But they just couldn't wrap their heads around it. ピザのために何でもあげる。There it is! The literal Japanese translation, which even I know. I don't have any Japanese friends! I don't speak the language at all! This country is obsessed, and they all suck.
Then I had to get a ride back with a guy who is one of the worst students. It's so painful, because I have to be the one who stoops to the lowest common denominator. Unless I speak, the car will be about as silent as a tomb. Why are these people learning English again? I thought language was supposed to be about communication. If they think they'll learn enough to understand movies or something, they've got another think coming.
I made a conscious decision a while ago. I was getting all depressed because my language ability wasn't really increasing; I didn't have anyone to speak Japanese to, in a country full of the little buggers. Then I realized, the point of a langauge is for communication. If I don't communicate using the language, what's the point? That's when I decided to switch my focus to reading, because that's something useful and entertaining for me. There's a point to it. Chinese characters are cool and useful, and I like playing Japanese games and reading manga. I can still get along fairly well in society, in spite of my ineptitude. For example, last week I forgot a bag of English textbooks on the train. The next day, I was able to go tell the station staff that I lost a bag of English books, and ask if they had the bag. Not amazing stuff, but enough to function.
Wow, that was pretty long and rambling. Forgive my loquaciousness. Two and a half months to go.
I saw the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie tonight, and illegally as well, I might add. Yes, I desecrated the memory of Douglas Adams by pirating the posthumous movie edition of the somewhat-beloved first part of the (five part) trilogy. In reality, I'm glad I didn't pay to watch it. If I hadn't read the books and listened to the radio show, I would have had no idea what was going on, and why anything was anything in that disjointed movie. I feel sorry for those people going in who hadn't experienced Hitchhiker's Guide in another media format; I would imagine that nothing in the movie made sense to them.
I must give at least some credit: the flick starts strong, staying at least somewhat close to the radio program/book, with Arthur's home and the earth getting demolished, Arthur and Ford's subsequent mishaps on the Vogon ship, and their rescue by the Heart of Gold. Here is the first real introduction to the Zaphod Beeblebrox character, who is played really quite well (for the first half of the movie, anyway). Unfortunately, Trillian also makes her appearance, which marks a continuous dragging point: the actress is really, REALLY bad.
From there the movie is locked in a downwards spiral: entirely new scenes are added, which go absolutely nowhere. About half an hour is devoted to Zaphod losing his second head (which somehow makes him remedial). Trillian gets captured by Vogons only to be saved again in a pointless fashion. Zaphod has to get some kind of "point of view" gun from the computer Deep Thought, which also has absolutely no bearing on the rest of the movie. Did I mention that the movie was locked in a downward spiral? It gets worse.
In addition to all the pointless additions (which don't even have the merit of being funny), the LURVE between Arthur and Trillian is made a central plot point throughout the movie. It just seems impossible for people to create a movie with no horribly written love-interest subplot. I really don't know how much of the script was written by Douglas Adams, but if it was his decision to include that tripe, I'm not sure I have the cognative capacity to understand his rationale.
The movie ends in a totally pointless matter. No major plot points are resolved; in fact, there is no plot. The only resolution is that Arthur and Trillian are now in love and happy. I know that Douglas Adams couldn't write a cohesive story very well, but this movie takes it one step lower. I read Douglas Adams for the humourous writing style; take that away, and you don't have much left.
When the movie ended, I felt pretty bad. It was bright and flashy with interesting special effects, but there was no substance. One good point was a well-played Marvin, voiced by Alan Rickman. Other than that, however, the movie was mostly a disappointment. Let the viewer beware.
Haven't updated in a while, which was the fault of lots of traveling combined with losing my free net connect. Yeah, losing the net wasn't cool. Last Friday it just cut out, and for all I know, hasn't come back up again. I finally gave my neighbor the WiFi router I bought, and he hooked it up, so I'm leeching off him now. I actually offered to pay, but he wouldn't have any of it. So, I guess I still have a free net connection, just from a different source.
For those in the know, my cousin Doug recently visited me here in the good ol' Japan. We hit Tokyo, Nikko, and Kyoto, all in the span of four days. I got a few good pictures, and possibly I can get a few more from Doug. Mebbe I'll upload a few in the near future.
Crazy fact: I've gone to nightclubs in Tokyo for the past two weeks, and I invariably end up talking/dancing with cute girls who can speak English. I don't know how this happens, but it does. I need to live in Tokyo.
Hey, a thought just came to me! Writing crap for a blog is just kinda stupid. I'm not feeling real motivated to write in this one, just FYI. So, if long periods of inactivity go by, be not afraid. It's just me being apathetic again.
So last night I stayed out all night at a club in Shibuya. Now I`m going to sleep for 2.5 hours in a Manboo internet cafe. Then I`m going to Narita to meet Doug. After that I`ll probably drop dead. Nice knowing you all!
I went into work today feeling the hatred towards mankind. Thursdays are long days for me, and I don't have Friday to look forward to, since I also work on Saturday. I also managed to come down with a mild cold, which didn't help my mood. It seems that my recent sicknesses have been stress-induced; this time, I think traveling across Japan for two days didn't help my blood pressure at all. To top it all off, I went in today and discovered that I accidentally skipped teaching a class last week. Now, it's not like I totally blew off some major class. I had 15 minutes of teaching time in a 1 and 1/2 hour class; they basically threw in that 15 minutes just to be tools. The Japanese teacher probably didn't even KNOW I was supposed to be in there, and I sure forgot about it. However, the upshot of all this is that I left work 12 minutes early, which means that I have over 10 minutes of "lateness" for this month, the consequences of which is that I don't get my 10,000 yen bonus for April. A few months ago, I resolved that if for any reason I lost my bonus, I would also take a few sick days that month. The rationale behind that is that if you use a sick day, you lose the bonus, but if the bonus is already lost, then sick days equal paid holidays.
If I wasn't such a moral person, I would have walked right back out the door this morning, claiming sickness, because like I said, Thursdays suck. But I felt kinda guilty about all the students: there would be absolutely no one to take my place. I then decided to take Saturday off, because I really only teach one class that day, the rest of the time is filled with "office hours," where I do absolutely nothing. Even after I decided that, however, I still felt guilty. I'd been reading bits of the Bible that talk about how you should basically suck it down when dealing with employers, even if they are morons. The idea, I guess, being that you show that you have a properly Christ-like attitude, you'll eventually get your reward, etc. etc. So, deliberately screwing over my employer by calling in sick (even though they screw me every chance they get) seemed immoral.
At the same time, though, if I don't skip work, I get nothing. I have to WORK! If I do skip, I get a nice, uninterrupted 7-day vacation, and there's no downside because I already lost my monthly bonus. So, to solve this dilemma, here's what I did. I decided that if I was accepted for that position in Osaka, I'd work on Saturday, because then I'd leave the darn school in two weeks. If I didn't get it, then I would skip, because I'd be all bitter and whatnot, for not getting a technology-related job, again.