the otter defense

From my father:

Greg,
Can you explain to Maureen the origin of the Otter defense?
Love,
Daddy

I can do one better. I copied the scene from my DVD of Animal House, converted it to DivX, and uploaded it to YouTube.



UPDATE: I should have added, this classic was filmed at our alma mater, The University of Oregon. As a high school senior, when I toured the campus, my tour guide actually pointed out things like, "That's where they had the food fight in Animal House (it's a coffee shop now). And that's the administration building where they killed the horse." My favorite anecdote from the tourguide: "John Belushi did actually chug an entire bottle of Jack Daniels at one point, and they had to halt filming for two weeks while he recovered."

never a good sign, part 2

Some of you may recall the story of Fernando, the plucky young lad who was chanting "ouch, ouch, ouch" while sitting on the toilet a few months back. I had thought that was an isolated incident, but after today's events I think there's just something seriously wrong with his diet.

We have a 20-minute break between 2nd and 3rd periods every morning. The kids use the time to play, finish up on incomplete homework, read in the library, etc. For the last few weeks the 5th/6th grade (they're combined here) teacher has been making her class run laps around the track during morning break. I'm not sure why, exactly.

Anyway, this morning I walked into the bathroom about halfway through the break, and while I was tending to my business I heard this pained whisper coming from a stall in back of me. The poor kid was barely managing to gasp "ittee, ittee" (a fairly severe "ouch, ouch"), and was in no condition to ask for my name this time. Furthermore, he'd left the classroom with the other fifth and sixth graders when they went outside to run, meaning he'd already been at this for a full ten minutes.

About five minutes later I saw Fernando back in the classroom, with a slight limp. He walked right up to me and said "Greg-sensei, my oshiri hurts!" Oshiri, of course, being the Japanese word for ass.

Again, wow.

Irving's on a Plane

Irving departed for Oregon today, but not before going to work with Samantha and meeting some of her students. I'll let her write more about it, but here are some pictures:

The sixth grade instructed Irving in the fine art of Japanese calligraphy.

Naoto-kun gave Irving one of his pieces as a present.

Irving had the pleasure of eating school lunch with the 3rd grade. They were so thrilled they demanded to commemorate the occasion afterwards.

I'll let Sam correct my mistakes and fill you in on all the rest. And at some point I'll get around to telling you all about our last week. We've done a lot since Disneyland, but haven't had time to sit down and write about it.

Disneyland!

Irving had so much fun at DisneySea last year that we decided to visit Tokyo Disneyland, in the other half of the resort this year. We took along Nozomi, the girl Samantha tutors every Thursday night (I teach her mother). We went early enough this year to catch the special "New Years Greeting" where all the characters put on kimonos and other traditional Japanese costumes and march in a quick parade. Partially as a result, this year was much, much more crowded than last. Lines at most rides were over two hours long. Still, we managed to have a lot of fun.


Irving insisted that his picture be taken in front of the entrance. He was far more excited than he appears in the photo.


Cinderella's castle was impressive, though much smaller than the one in Florida, I'm told. I told Irving I'll have to take him to Neuschwanstein some day.


We only arrived in the park about 10 minutes before the New Years Greeting started, so we didn't have the best seats. But this should give you an idea. The mouses were quite cute in their kimonos (and I never knew Mickey was so multilingual).


Nozomi and Sam, with Thunder Mountain in the distance behind them. This was taken during the 130 minute wait for Splash Mountain (fairly early on, when they could still smile).


Apparently as a young girl of 5, Samantha was scared senseless by one of the larger rides at Disneyland in California. Her mother consoled her by taking her on It's A Small World over and over again for an entire afternoon. Our trip through the ride brought back many happy memories.

牛久大仏

On Wednesday we had a slow day to make up for our hectic schedule the day before. We slept in until a reasonable hour, then Sam took the car to have the fluids and filters changed (it had been making odd noises) and we drove north into Ibaraki, the next prefecture up. Last year on our trip to Tskubasan we saw a huge (120m, not 100 as I thought last year) Kannon from the road and decided to check it out. Irving was so impressed he wanted to go back this year.


It's big. Real big.


One of the funniest signs I've seen in awhile, from an exhibition inside the Kannon's base.


Looking straight up, from the top of the pedastal.

January 2nd

January 1st through 3rd are holidays here in Japan. The first is pretty quiet, when people generally stay home with their families and enjoy a lazy day after being out all night. On the 2nd, however, the emperor makes a public appearance at his palace in the center of Tokyo. It's one of two days each year that the emperor does this, so it's a big deal. The 2nd is also when all the sales start. In Japan, most stores mark the occasion by selling fukubukuro (福袋), which translates roughly as "surprise bags" or "lucky bags". Throughout the entire period of new year holidays, temples around Japan sell fortunes. Visitors to the temple shake a box containing numbered sticks, pull out a random stick with a number on it, and take the fortune with the corresponding number. If the fortune is good, people take it with them. If the fortune is bad, it's generally folded up and tied to a tree branch on the temple grounds so the bad fortune can't follow people home. Sensoji, in Asakusa (NE Tokyo) happens to have multilingual fortunes, so we braved the crowds to get ours. We also managed to see the emperor (for the 3rd year in a row) and do some shopping before heading out to Harajuku for dinner. It was a long day.


A dragon and his musical troupe added to the already substantial din of Tokyo Station.


Samantha standing in line at the Donguri Kyouwakoku (どんぐり共和国 - literally "Acorn Republic"), which sells things associated with Studio Ghibli. She had to wait for awhile, but our fukubukuro were worth it.


The "foreigners-go-home" folks were out in force for the emperor's appearance.


The Japanese people love their emperor (so do the nationalists, who started screaming "banzai, banzai" when he appeared). If you squint (and blow the picture up) you might see him in the center of that bulletproof balcony.


The line from the Kaminarimon (雷門 - Thunder Gate, behind us) to Sensoji Temple (the outer gate of which is visible near the horizon) was 400m long.


2007 is the year of the boar.


The main hall of Sensoji, which we could finally see after waiting an hour.


There were literally hundreds of Tokyo Metro Police on hand to control the crowd at the temple. This scene repeated itself everywhere in Japan over the last three days.


The inside of the main hall. This photo is blurry, but it gives you an idea of the bustle inside. Traditionally, visitors toss small coins into a receptacle near the front of the hall and then pray. The crowd here was so large that people were tossing 10-yen coins distances of 5 meters or so, just so they could avoid the crush at the front. This resulted in more than one visitor being pelted on the head.

Happy New Year, Part 2

We met up with our friend Angie and her parents last night, and they followed us to Niousan Temple in Shibayama around 11. There were fireworks (which didn't photograph well), lots of food, and many various charms to buy for the new year. After we'd prayed at the main temple and bought an arrow to keep bad spirits out of our house in 2007, we headed over to Narita-san. It was about a 30 minute drive, and then a short hike to get to the temple from where we parked. It was packed.

 

That's the pagoda outside the main hall (which also didn't photograph well). I have no idea how many people were there, but there were at least 100 police officers on hand to direct people around. All in all, a fun night.

happy new year

It's been 2007 for about four hours here. We got back from the temples around three. So far, not much to report, other than 2007 being cold.