A few posts

(written several hours ago)
I have very poor Internet access at the moment so I can't post anything. It's annoying timing, since I have all this time at home now it's holidays. But anyway, I've been writing random posts the last few days...

(am trying several times to post this. My Internet access is very, very slow and keeps stopping. When my Internet is like this, it's easier for me to access Blogger than, say, email, because email has more screens to go through.)

Thur 27 Dec

Ureshii! (I'm happy!) I've signed up for Internet. I won't get it until the second week of January, but who cares? Right now I can only access the 'net sitting cross-legged on the floor in the exact same spot in my room, waiting and waiting for things to load. It hurts my back, and I've wasted so much time waiting for the slow connection.

Plus, earlier in the week, I couldn't use the Internet at all. I don't like being at the whim of someone else's connection. What if they stop their Internet service altogether? Then *I* don't have it. I'd like to say I made the moral decision not to 'borrow' someone else's wireless, but the truth is, if their wireless was *good*, I probably would have just continued using it...

***

Today was a good day at work. I only had two private lessons.

K, the student who got drunk yesterday, came in for three classes today (he was only supposed to have two today, but he had to make up the class he couldn't make yesterday due to the fact that he was lying on the floor of the interview room, inebriated).

He was very apologetic and bowed with many 'sumimasen's, haha... He is one of my favourite students though because he is able to infuse the most boring classes with energy and humour.

The other private lesson was with my Mexican student. His favourite lesson style is just free conversation, which I enjoy very much, because he is easy-going and has plenty to say.

I was also lucky enough to behold the practice for a play some of the students will be doing. The lead actor (a guy, who is playing the most beautiful woman in Japanese folklore) came in to practice with Jim. It was so hilarious, I wish I had a video camera. The student is a natural, and he is going to wear his sister's yukata. I could hear them practicing while I was making my lesson materials. Later, they practiced in the lobby and I got to join in, taking some of the extra parts.

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I've been very busy lately preparing for this 'fun day' we're having at the end of next week. It's a day of fun lessons and games; students can come and join in on any class they like. I am running a few games like Taboo and Pictionary, as well as a class on Aussie culture and language, a class on idioms, and a couple of others.

There is a lot of work involved in planning a class from scratch. I had to create enough Taboo cards to last an hour (we don't have the game here, and we need to use much simpler vocab), I've been making up handouts for my Aussie lesson, and making up lots of 'drill cards' for my idioms class. It's fun work though, the kind of thing I enjoy.

Fri 28 Dec

Okay, as it happens I can't get any Internet access at all today. This is pretty annoying, so I'll just type on my computer...

I had my first shamisen lesson today. It was great fun. It's been a long time since I tried to learn a new musical instrument for the first time. I'm going to have another lesson next week. After that, I'm not sure. It would be nice to continue and also have my own shamisen to practice on. But shamisen are expensive, and the shamisen class is in Ueno, in Tokyo. It takes me just over an hour to get there, so the only time I can really do it is Monday, my day off...

***

I speak differently when I talk to students. I cut about 90% of idioms out of my language. Sometimes I will use idioms so I can explain what they mean, but I know that any time I do use an idiom, I will have to explain it, and you don't want to constantly stop what you're saying. I didn't realise how much my speaking had changed until an advanced-level student asked me to speak using casual Australian. I couldn't do it!

In Australia my spoken English was often pretty atrocious. I'd often say things like 'I could totally go a burger' or 'I reckon I've had about enough of this' or 'this is a bit of alright' (pronounced 'this izza bit of alroight...')...

Now, I'm a changed person. I instinctively aim for the simplest, clearest ways of expressing things. This is only with students and all Japanese people (in other words, 'only' with almost everyone I speak to :)). When I talk to Jim or (rarely) another Westerner I do immediately revert to 'normal' speech. But I find it very difficult to do it with students, even at their request.

I tell you what though, I never realised just how many idioms there are in the English language. An idiom is basically any phrase where the words do not take on their literal meaning, but have a different meaning. There are stacks of them. ;)

Sat 29 Dec

Today I got up at about 1pm, which is pretty disgraceful. Like, I *know* I won't be able to get to sleep until 3am tonight, but somehow it doesn't stop me... They have these trucks that drive around the neighbourhoods here with megaphones, broadcasting messages. Today there was an annoying one playing children's music. I don't know what they are all about. I can still 'sleep in' through them though...

Today was the first day in ages that I didn't take a train anywhere but just mooched around in my own 'suburb'. What I did (in mid-afternoon, by the time I was finally ready to go outside...) was walk down the street to the Cafe de Crie... I sat there over two cappuccinos and read a book I bought yesterday. It's a book of the correspondence between Bernard Shaw and Ellen Terry and it was published in 1931. It seemed an appropriate sort of book to read in a place called the Cafe de Crie, sitting before the window, looking out at the rain-drenched streets, with people smoking nearby. I don't know why...

For the first time I realised what was meant by 'cutting' pages, as many pages were bound together (fortunately not all of them, as the book has nearly 500 pages!) It feels strange to cut the pages of a book that's over 75 years old. What it actually means is that this book has existed for 75 years, yet I am the first person to ever read these pages. And how strange that this book, published in Great Britain so long ago, should come to be in a bookshop in Jimbocho, Tokyo.

Yesterday I went to Jimbocho after my shamisen lesson. Jimbocho is an area of Tokyo known for its many second-hand bookstores. I had a good time wandering its streets. Most of them were Japanese, of course, but I did find this one bookstore where most of the books were in English, and most of them too intellectual or classical for me. Helene Hanff (who wrote 84 Charing Cross Road) would have had a ball in there; I saw many of her favourites in there; it's due to her that I heard of Ellen Terry in the first place. But I bought three books and was happy. :)

Anyway, where was I? After lingering at the Cafe de Crie, I went walking the main streets near my house. I should try to describe them, but I'm not very good at that sort of thing. There are lots of small, specialty shops that seem to be locally owned. There are a couple of chain stores - a McDonalds and a Mister Donut, for example - but most of them are 'hole in the wall' stores, a little bit ramshackle, with home-made posters and goods piled higgledy-piggledy in the windows.

The street itself is not what you would call picturesque - it's not exactly sparking and modern, and there are quite a few telephone wires, and shop curtains - but when there are lots of people about, the street has a kind of cool market feel. There are lots of older ladies lining up to buy their fish or vegetables, and people loading up their bicycles with fresh produce. There are fish shops, lots of fruit and vegetable shops, watch shops, glasses shops, shoe shops, crockery shops, electronics shops; all sorts. And there are really only locals that shop there, because this area is not famous for anything.

I like it very much.

This area is only 5-10 minutes' walk from my apartment. So when I went down a side-street to check out the markets there, I figured I'd just walk around the block and take a different route back onto my own street (it was literally two streets away from my street). BAD IDEA. Don't ask me how it was possible to get lost for two hours. Don't ask. All I can say is that the area in which I live is a total rat's maze of endless small side streets and irregularly designed blocks, and it was not long before I had no idea whatsoever of the points of the compass; I didn't even know which general direction the train station was - it could have been any direction at all, for all I knew. Also, this is just a vast, sprawling suburban neighbourhood, so there's not much by way of public maps, signs, and directions.

I kept thinking at any moment that I'd run into a familiar street, and don't really like asking for directions - I was quite enjoying my walk for a while anyway - but eventually I was forced to ask for directions. The first lady I asked, I was worried she was going to try to walk with me the whole way, taking her ages out of her way, but in the end, she gave me a long, complicated stream of directions, of which I understood almost nothing. But I said, 'hai, wakarimashita, wakarimashita, arigato gozaimasu' (yes, I understand, I understand, thank you) several times, and she left me. (Of course I didn't understand, but I didn't want her to feel obliged to walk me the whole way there!)

The second lady I asked, I actually understood a good deal of what she said (it helped that by this stage, I was closer to my destination and thus it was easier to explain); she used lots of the words from the 'Japanese for Busy People' lesson I studied recently - hidari, massugu, shingo, kousaten (left, straight ahead, traffic light, crossing).

The third girl I asked gave me the blessedly reassuring, single-word answer 'massugu' (straight ahead), so that was easy enough. :)

I still can't believe I got quite as lost as I did. I think I was heading north instead of east and thus never even hit the train station... but I erroneously thought I had crossed the tracks early on, so I was completely disoriented. I mean, I've never claimed to have a great sense of direction, but two hours was a new low, even for me... hahaha!

Anyway, the moral of the story is, Always Walk Back The Same Way You Came!

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I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas, and I wish you all the happiest of new years. :)