Well Balanced Examination in Japan

By the moons of icy Hoth,

It's David Lee Roth!

Alert all of you who are looking for a well balanced examination of the Japanese educational system or similarities and differences therein. 20 weeks left from a full complement and I have found the worst one and intend to bitch about her without restraint or volume regulation.

<from here on, shouting and waving index finger like a despot> Unfortunately for neuronally-starved her, society dictated that for the period of 8 o'clock to 10 o'clock yesterday evening she was loosely in my employ to bring me plates of raw meat and ginger ale for my delectation.

Now I very much realise that this is not Tokyo. I realise it every day when an air raid siren goes off at 11 and 5 just in case there's an emergency (Yankies on the starboard bow I assume) and the only wild life one might encounter are GPS-less crabs. And I have made my peace with occasionally being thwarted when it comes to simple requests being rendered impossible by the complicated Japanese being spoken and the fact that English as a thing hasn't really ever cracked southern Japan. Much like wine, fruit or sit down pooing.

I grind my teeth bitterly when I read about jonny foreigner having trouble practicing his Japanese in Tokyo as everybody will automatically speak English to him. Git.

The truth of it is, the amount of times in a day anybody here encounters a foreigner depends very much on the schedule of one Mark-sensei. Whoever he is... sounds handsome though.

However when said foreigner learns your pissing language, speaks in the most slow and even tone possible, explains the thing several times with pictures and visual aids and you are still bewildered.... YOU HAVE A BAD BRAIN!!!

Pictured: The corporeal vessel of all her hopes, dreams and thoughts.

And a vital source of starch.

What's more is pissface then trudged about trying to avoid us for the evening and giving me the most severe of stinkeyes at any and every opportunity. She at one point looked to Meg for help to translate what I was saying (from Japanese to guttural grunts and clicks I must assume) who assuming it was her turn to order ordered corn. Or in Japanese "corn." She also pointed at the picture. The picture was also of corn.

20 minutes later a large platter that was mainly a variety of mushrooms landed on our desk. The rubberband of my ire tightened still further.

I commit my anger to the digital library of the internet in the hope that one day she will learn... any language, and will have my grievances explained to her in depth at some future time. You are all witnesses.

In happier news, my nose has returned to some kind of normality after weeks of acute pain on the tip. Much like a pimple, it was red and hot though weirdly the pain extended all the way into my nasal cavity. Attempts to pop the sucker led merely to sneezing and weeping. Sneeping.

After consulting some dubious websites I rubbed the area vigourously with warm water until... (read away now if squeamish) the tip of my inner nose hair eventually poked out ever so slightly, allowing me a one tug remedy that was immediatelly followed by the ingrown hair hole being filled with blood and dribbling down my face.

Apparently this is a thing that happens...

Though I will say it's no weirder than the time I found a chunk of baby tooth in one of my gums, then due to a lack of alternatives ground the thing up with my adult teeth and swallowed. Please enjoy that image.

Over the weekend I was held hostage to a fervent desire to nap for long periods, culminating in a 5 hour slumber bonanza yesterday afternoon. Solid.

You might recall I mentioned potentially going to the naked man festival, my reason for not going was due to an unknown Fun-Shithead quotient. For an explanation of this detail at length, check previous emails.

Instead we discovered a new mexican bar in Matsuyama and played a little table football. This allowed me to regale them with my undue amount of knowledge about the Professional Fussball League and it's activities in Ireland. Essentially it's 4 guys who all live together in the Dublin suburbs subsisting on takeaways and a regimen of not changing their underpants and living off of the tables they make and install in bars in the capital cities' pubs. Heroes all.

Every sport has it's pretty boys

My male students are still worryingly penis obsessed, goading each other by yelling phallic foods at each other. As comparisons to their downstairs business.

  

"Wiener!" 

"Baguette!"

"Radish!"

This... obsession is only highlighted by the opening of the Tokyo Sky Tree, the new second tallest structure in the world after Dubai's Burj al Metaphor

This just screams, "I have nothing to be ashamed of" Japan.

Visible from large parts of Tokyo, it dominates the skyline and lances kindergarteners with falling icicles at a rate of one a day.

Speaking of, a kid turned up at Megs school a few days ago with a limp and crying. Due to the cold floors in his school and their refusal to allow shoes, the kid has frostbite. It took all of one day for another student to tread on his tender tips, eliciting a spine chilling shriek and a pair of bloody socks.

As I have been asked to accept before, it is... a Japanese way.

Well Balanced Examination in Japan.

p.s. fuck that waitress.