Not ambidextrous

Luckily for me there are at least two ways of knitting. Also luckily for me, my fabulous Finnish friend Heidi took it upon herself to make sure I could knit 'continental' last year.

Its lucky because last night in a momentary lapse of concentration whilst julienning carrots I accidentally julienned my knuckle too. All digits are intact, and I don't need stitches (huzzah!) but the offending index finger is all wrapped in in iodine and a big ol' elastoplast.

So far my supportive friends have have had the following kind things to say about it: klutz, idiot, spazz (also, 'now you have spazzy hands like Seth!'), moron, 'there's no blood in the stir-fry is there?', 'only you, you spazz' and so on and so forth...

*sigh*

Smallville, small problems

Jon and I have been enjoying Smallville during these dark, cold wintery days.

Some observations:
1) All the 'teenagers' are clearly being played by people in their mid twenties, and furthermore one of them in particular sports rather pronounced laughter lines. Now, even if you insist on playing [American] football every day, is the sun really so strong in that particular town in Kansas to cause such bad premature ageing?
2) Spot the cameos/extras/pre-fame actors. Ones of note? Evangeline Lilly in the background at a party, Adam Brody being typically, well, angst-y.

In addition, Jon and I have started a new game entitled 'Stuff Clark Needs'. So far we'd recommend he gets hold of a cellphone and an umbrella...

Post exam stress relief - highly recommended

Exam yesterday. The JLP (Japanese language proficiency) exam to be precise. Having done a past paper last week and completely flunked it I was trying to decide if it was even worth bothering with. Support from various areas was good, ranging from the argument that it was after all a day off work out in Beppu, that it was good practice for next year, and most unmotivatingly that it was really easy and I should have no problems. Of course the latter (from at least two people) would have been more reassuring if they hadn't have been fluent in the language themselves... as it is I've only just learned to read in a reasonably flowing manner, having spent the last few months sounding out each pathetic syllable and having to constantly correct myself when I work out what the word actually is. Anyway, confident in the likelihood that the test would be excrutiating, I decided to go on the basis that I hadn't been to Beppu in the day before and moreover I quite fancied visiting Monkey Mountain.

The test was ok-ish and bizarrely fun as we watched the invigilators trying to follow the very stringent instructions in pamplets, holding up yellow cards then red cards then yellow - no! that should have been a red one, gomenesai, another yellow one, in antics that most closely resembled a soccer match between Italy and Brasil.

After the test, Katie and I headed out to Monkey mountain for our quota of ooh-ing and aahh-ing. The story of this place is quite a good one. It was set up in 1952 by the ex-mayor of Oita City in response to a growing problem of these little guys raiding farms and destroying rice crops. He lured them in by, and I quote from the pamphlet "scattering bait and blowing a conch (a kind of shell horn)". Now there are over a thousand monkeys - all of them Japanese macaques - living here in a pretty large area stretching up into the mountain. They're all used to the tourists that visit in their droves so the little guys just appear from nowhere and run round your feet like nutters. After heeding some good advice from the large board at the entrance "don't feed the monkeys. Don't make fun of the monkeys" and from Jorge, who had a close encounter when he visited "don't make eye contact, man", we spent far longer than we should have done just watching them. Katie put it best when she said that some of the interest in them is because they are so similar to humans, but unlike humans seem to have no sense of embarrassment, so when leap and nearly miss, watching them slide down a tree as their grip fails is as funny as when they pick themselves up and do exactly the same thing again. I guess animals bring out the childish fascination in all of us, but I don't think I'd have gone quite as far as the pamphlet, which in an act of translation that only becomes wrong the more you look at it, says that "in 1977 thirty of the monkeys were given to Italy and ten to Korea the next year. The monkeys have contributed to friendly relations with these countries." Now, they're cute, but fulfilling a diplomatic role? I just don't buy it...

winter cycling and warm hearts

Nothing warms the heart quite like the sight of a monk, dressed in full regalia, run a red light on a moped.

Happy days.

Log burning fires and the lack thereof

Its cold now. I know I commented on this last time, but I'm going to say it again. Of course, this is all comparative, the temperature is probably only 7 or 8 degrees or so, but its been raining, so it feels a little chillier.
Japanese houses don't have central heating (maybe they do in Hokkaido, but I'm told around here C.S. is a rarity), so after a few months of natural air-con (i.e. opening the windows) it has once again become too something to do that.
So, last week on went the air-con and my skin instantly dried up. Nice. Now starts my twice annual hunt for good moisturizer...
My students have been telling me about something called a kotatsu, from which it seems people rarely stray during the colder months. This is actually just a low table with a heater attached to the underside, so it performs the dual function of keeping food warm and one's tootsies toasty. I'd seen pictures before, but it only twigged what these things actually did last week, so this is in effect a public service announcement. The beauty of it you see, is that in addition to the heater, people put a futon over the table as well, to keep the hot air in. I mention this, because as Jack posted a video of the first log fire of the season at the Mapledurwell ranch on his blog a couple of weeks back, I have been feeling a yearning towards warm winter nights. I'm obviously not allowed to burn stuff here, so I'm going to investigate the Japanese option on Monday.

Weather report

Today is the first Saturday in November. I'm not at work because I have the 'flu/cold, I've been feeling pretty icky and bless her, Sachi our manager has rung twice to ask if she can take me to the hospital. I'm coming to the conclusion that riding out illness is not the done thing here, that you should go to the hospital/doctor at the first sign of illness. Still, its only been a few days, so I'm going all western and sleeping, drinking hot lemon, taking hot baths and trying not to think about letting our students down, or worse, making them take Multi-Media lessons.
Had I not been feel a bit grotty I would be enjoying the glorious sunshine and warm temperatures right now. Coming from a country where the seasons seem to have merged into one rather nondescript season, characterized only by a slight increase in temperature or marginally improved chance of snow, I find the seasons rather fascinating.
I always mark the beginning of winter by the time in which I can no longer wear flip flops. This was only two weeks ago (and for Katie only a couple of days ago - she was even less impressed with the necessary change of footwear than me, and I'm pretty anti-socks). Its still warm - I can go out without a sweater if its in the middle of the day.
Autumn is here though; it has crept up on us, quietly and gradually. So gradually that none of us really noticed until the socks appeared again. The air has lost its humidity, now it is crisp and fresh. It gets cool much earlier, we can leave the windows open for ventilation rather than having to keep them closed to help the efforts of the air conditioning. Last night I had to shut the windows because it was too cool. It's darker too - when I leave work at 5.40 we are into dusk; sepia toned sunlight (if we're lucky) and optional headlights. The rice has been harvested and the fields have been rotivated already, allowing time for the ground to rest until the next sowing of the seeds. And, typically Japanese, the fire engines' sirens can be heard more regularly. The dry spell of autumn is coupled with more house fires, and the fire brigade seems to be working nightly now. News of serious fires are transmitted by a loud siren; 1 drone for the all clear, 2 for fires nearby, 3 for ones far away. The wailing is disconcerting on a still, cool night and kind of heightens the drama of it all - a few times I've rushed outside, expecting to see half of Nakatsu ablaze, but I'm guessing the fire brigade just relish having some actual work to do (the last time I saw them, it was in March and they were cruising around halfheartedly reminding people not to set fire to things).

Pan- Pacific Career Advice

I'm in a slump. So's Laura. This makes me feel better.
Until last year I thought I knew what I wanted to do with myself - PhD, teaching, yay. Now, I'm really not sure that's what I'd be happiest doing; keeping up to date with positions advertised at various Universities, Colleges and educational supplements I'm realizing that entering the world of academia gives you very little choice as far as locations are concerned. I don't want to end in living in Coventry or Aberwythstythhwyth (????) no matter how good the job is. Once I'd realized this, admitted this (these two stages occurred months apart - denial is a bitch) and come to terms with it, I've been feeling rather unsettled.
I'm certainly not complaining about my current situation. I'm loving living in Japan, with all its quirks, differences, similarities and food. Its great to have a set working week and two CONSECUTIVE days off WITH Jon. I love only having one job to think about and I love seeing students progress.
Even so, being overly thoughtful about most things does mean that I've been wondering what I should be doing long term. So, during one of our phone dates, Laura and I were chatting at length about this and after we agreed to exchange emails with our respective non-life plans. I have to say there's nothing like having a friend who knows you well suggest things, plots and plans that should have seemed like natural and logical choices all along. Now I have my plan(s) I have to figure out a way to combat my biggest hurdle - my tendency to let imagination rule over practicality - and just GET ON WITH IT.
Go on, phone a friend.

Trust Fun

A few months back now (notice how I've decided to not bother with an apology about the lack of recent posts?) the Mapledurwell clan were visiting and we went on a little jolly to Nagasaki. We had decided that dinner was probably a good idea, but as with any city you're unfamiliar with we had no idea where to even start looking. We located the entertainment/food district and were still wandering around, hoping that a restaurant would magically appear from nowhere right there in front of us on the sidewalk. Jon decided to ask a random guy working in one of the many pachinko parlours. He clearly had no idea what we were talking about, and the longer i watched him and Jon talking the younger I realised he probably was. By the time we left I concluded he was probably no more than 16. In the midst of this confusion, a [very] drunk salaryman emerged and with good (though inebriated) English he told us that he knew a great restaurant and that we should follow him. I could sense three reactions to this:
1/Relief - from the child working in the pachinko place
2/Interest mixed with slight apprehension - me and Jon, slightly familiar with this kind of harmless drunkenness, but nevertheless a little unsure of where we were going, especially as the prostitutes down this street all seemed to know this guy...
3/Suspicion - the Clan. Who the hell is this guy and where the hell is he taking us?
Of course, we needn't have worried, Drunken Salaryman personally escorted us to an amazing restaurant that we would never have found in a million years, spoke to the waitress, sorted us out with a table, bid us adieu and stumbled off into the night.
If that had been London, he'd have walked off with all our valuables and we'd all probably be indentured somewhere in North Korea by now. Trust is fun.

Butter wouldn't melt, eh?

Butter wouldn't melt, eh? Some of the Nova kinder kids
Originally uploaded by emkuntze.

I'm knackered. After work last night I decided to head for the gym. Its like many other gyms, in that its a very different place in the evening. I'm used to going in the afternoon or early evening, pre-dinner when, as you would expect, the place is mostly frequented by the retired who use the gym as an excuse to do what they do best; put the world to rights, have a good natter and spend hours in the baths and sauna. At night, its full of blokes lifting weights that look bigger and heavier than they are, professional women in designer gear and die-hard swim fanatics. I did, therefore, feel slightly out of place. I solved this problem by the toddler method, i.e. I believed if I couldn't see them, they couldn't see me, so I took my glasses off and everywhere looked instantly blurry-er, and a little less like a Soviet training facility.

Had a fabulous run. Fabulous, insofar as I was so busy trying to get the connection sorted out in my headphones that when I actually looked at the display I had run considerably further than I thought I could. So please, send you faulty headsets this way, I may yet have a use for them...

Today has been pretty tiring, partly because of my fitness hangover, and partly because I had Ataru the human atomic bomb this morning (remarkably restrained I might add, and to be fair, he may be genki as the day is long, but he's never, ever a chore), inadvertantly taught the same lesson twice, forgetting what I had just said, and confusing it with something I had told the other class earlier, and to top it all I had my new Kinder class last lesson.

Boy oh boy.

My other kinder class has two little girls in, one of whom is 3 and has the attention of someone who is, well, 3 and the other one gets distracted to say the least, so in any given lesson I could well have two small children looking with great interest at a spot on the wall. This class was somewhat different. The bell went off so I wandered to the kids room. I could hear me coming from the shouts of "Its Emma K!" and much squealing. Two of them dragged me into the kids room (remarkable strength for a [tiny] four year old) before I could take my shoes off. Bless. 40 minutes later I was ready to drop off in the staff room.

Only two more days until a lie-in.