It's Mr Miyagi!
Hey all, another week into the pre-Christmas stretch and I'm getting a bit sick of having to make up fairly unrelated and turgid games on pretty godawful points of grammar.
"It is the soup that you want."
Apparently. I managed to turn this into the Einstein House Puzzle, where you spend 45 minutes chewing your pencil wondering who in fact does "Have the fish?" The Indian horse trainer or the Pall Mall chain-smoking alcoholic. In the end it is revealed that it is in fact you who has a fish, working the levers in your rubbish brain allowing you to waste so many minutes of your precious life so imprudently.
As my day has so far consisted of filling out a questionnaire about what kind of cake I want for Christmas school lunch (the first of several such unnecessarily unfestive pieces of paperwork I will have to fill out in the pursuit of some 4 out of 10 quality confectionary) and having my timetable ignored by home room teachers who barge into my room at irregular times with irregular students I believe I shall vent a little steam.
In March of every Japanese school year, the Japanese public sector undergoes a monumental, indeed tectonic shift. About 30% of all staff are moved from every school/office/public facility to another such place in the same district. This means that every 3-4 years the deck is completely shuffled, crappy schools become good schools and bad teachers aren't too bothersome as they're never round long enough for people to get really pissed with them.
The aim is to keep corruption down by not allowing people to burrow in like some rubbishy wasp which is all well and good. Unless you are the only one who is not moving. Any amount of give I may have had with the people here when I first came either vanished with them or settled into the beleaguered resentment they feel to their other Japanese co-workers as I am supplanted from my throne of newness by new and equally clueless Japanese teachers.
What's more is that I was pretty damn unlucky with my first reshuffle, where I lost about half of the teachers who could speak English to any degree and these were replaced with a bunch of chickenheads who not only are devoid of the English they are meant to know but have trouble with discipline, timetables, stopping kids from falling over and revelling in the acute satisfaction that comes with bawling a kid out when they won't shut their noise holes.
Not pictured: the child he is standing on
In any case, under the slack tutelage of one of these new(er) teachers, one of my elementary school classes is gradually climbing from a solid 7 to a low level 8 on the Lord-Of-The-Flies-oscope. Next comes the severed pigs head and a fat kid with broken glasses. Though I'm afraid they don't make me nearly as uncomfortable as the 12 year old who hasn't been taught what "bad touch" is yet. Now I'm a liberal guy, but flip and a fedora if that kid doesn't work my creeped-out reflex to its very last strand to the point that I usually try to use another child as a shield or just make sure I'm playing chasing the whole time so I can avoid his
... busy hands.
Then there's SF (refer to earlier postings for the key to what SF stands for, or make up you're own poo-based nickname, you'll probably be close) who continues to lead a one-jerk crusade against punctuality, lesson plans and the English language.
All told, this little piggy is gonna be happy to be on the far side of the 9 day week I'm currently facing into. Course there are a few culture festivals thrown in there for good measure but there are more than enough soup-brains and jerk-bags between me and my next meagre slice of sweet sweet freedom. And many many more between this little piggy and his next slice of roast beef. To which I add, wee wee wee all the way home.
Incidentally, pigs eating beef? Wouldn't that make em go mental like mad cow disease?
Or the Jim'll fix it guy?
In other news I had a great moment in a convenience store a few days ago which basically was a brilliant Nth degree of day to day Japanese politeness. So in any shop or restaurant in Japan, when a customer comes through the door it is customary for every staff member in audible range to shout "IRRASHIMASE!!!" This kinda translates I think to "You have come (honourably.)"
It's a bit disconcerting in most cases as there are people shouting it from every direction, mainly from places that you can't see e.g. the kitchen. But in these cases they do it almost as a reflex, not even pausing in their work of coaxing some kind flavour out of a kilo of plain rice or putting wrapped packages into ever so slightly bigger wrappers just to layer those suckers up for winter insulation or good luck or whatever the frig.
For the most part though, the professional welcome is a bit hollow as as soon as you speak (in either English OR Japanese) they will give you a pleadingly confused look like you have just asked them to pop a marshmallow up their bottom.
Anyway, a convenience store worker came in the door and no-one looked up to see that it was in fact an employee. He got the full shouting treatment as everybody in the shop shrieked at him at the top of their lungs without actually looking up from the Strawberry and Milk flavored Pepsi (I kid you not) they were stacking on the shelves.
The worker himself was also shy of a few brain cells so assumed similarly that all his co-workers weren't shouting for the good of their health and that a customer had come in. The customer who was him.
So in essence I got to see the odd treat of a man screaming "WELCOME!!!!" to himself as his power of independent thought flickered and died for the very last time.
Just got a form into my hands for re-contracting for another year. It's gonna stay blank...
See you soon stinkbugs!
Busy Hands in Japan
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